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The Victoria history of the
Counties of England

EDITED BY WILLIAM PAGE, F.S.A.

A HISTORY OF
YORKSHIRE

VOLUME III

THE

VICTORIA HISTORY

OF THE COUNTIES
OF ENGLAND

YORKSHIRE

LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED

This History is issued to Subscribers only
By Constable & Company Limited
and printed by Eyre & Spottiswoode Limited
H.M, Printers of London

INSCRIBED
TO THE MEMORY OF
HER LATE MAJESTY

QUEEN VICTORIA

WHO GRACIOUSLY GAVE
THE TITLE TO AND
ACCEPTED THE

DEDICATION OF
THIS HISTORY

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

He exercised his metropolitan prerogative in consecrating the fifth Archbishop
of Canterbury at Lincoln; but the death of Eadwine at Hatfield (633) gave
Northumbria back to paganism for a time. Paulinus accompanied Queen
Ethelburga in her flight to Kent, and remained there as Bishop of Rochester.
In Swaledale James the Deacon remained, preaching, baptizing, and teaching
his converts the music of the liturgy.°. When Christianity recovered ground
under Oswald the scene of its activity was transferred to Bernicia. Aidan,
a monk from Iona, was sent into Northumbria by the Scottish bishops, of
whom Oswald asked aid, and fixed his see in the monastery of Lindisfarne.”
Oswald re-united the two provinces of Eadwine’s kingdom, but it is doubt-
ful how far Scottish Christianity extended into Deira. On Oswald’s death,
his kingdom was again divided. His brother Oswiu ruled in Bernicia ;
Oswin, son of a cousin of Eadwine, became king of Deira. Dissension
between them developed into open war, and Oswin, in the hour of defeat,
was murdered treacherously at Gilling near Richmond (642)." For some
time after the accession of Oswiu to the undivided throne, the Scottish
mission maintained its ascendancy in Northumbria. Oswiu founded a
monastery on the site of Oswin’s murder. Missionaries from Northumbria
went, under his sanction, to convert the Middle Anglian kingdom,” and Cedd
was sent by him, at King Sigeberht’s request, to preach Christianity to the
East Saxons. /Ethelwald, Oswiu’s nephew, who ruled Deira under him,
granted Cedd, as a place of retirement, the site on which rose the monastery
of Lastingham.% In 655, Oswiu avenged the deaths of Eadwine and Oswald
at the battle of Winwed. One result of the victory was the foundation, by
Oswiu, of six monasteries in Deira.”

About this time, Hilda, a princess of the house of Eadwine, founded
the monastery of Streoneshalh, afterwards known as Whitby. Here, in 664,
the future of Northumbrian Christianity was decided. The Scottish episco-
pate of Northumbria had been continued from Aidan to Finan, and from Finan
to Colman, who appears to have included Deira in his jurisdiction. The
Scottish celebration of Easter, a week in advance of the Roman, held the
field. James the Deacon, and Oswiu’s queen, Eanfled, followed the Roman
use..7_ Oswiu’s son Alchfrith, who shared his father’s throne, had learned
the Roman custom from his friend Wilfrid. Wilfrid, born about 634,
had been educated at Lindisfarne, but drawn by a natural attraction to
Rome, had unlearned Scottish usages there. In Gaul he received minor
orders, and narrowly escaped sharing the martyrdom of his friend, the Arch-
bishop of Lyons. Returning to Northumbria, he gained the close friendship
of Alchfrith, and received from him the grant of the monastery of Ripon,
where he replaced a Scottish abbot and his monks.’ Here he was ordained
priest by the Frankish bishop, Agilberht. He came forward at the Council
of Whitby as the spokesman of the Roman party against his Scottish teachers.
His victory was complete ; Oswiu decided to follow the Roman use, and

® Bede, Hist. Eccl. lib. ii, cap. 20. 1 Thid. iii, 3. " Tbid. 14.

"7 Tbid. 21. 8 Ibid. 22. M Tbid. 23. 6 Ibid. 24.

“Thid. 25. Eddius Stephanus, ‘Vita Wilfridi’ (Hist. Cs. York [Rolls Ser.], i, 14), calls him
‘Eborace civitatis episcopi metropolitani.’

Y Bede, op. cit. iii, 25.

* Ibid. ; cf. Eddius, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 12.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Colman retired from a district in which he could no longer hold his own.
Tuda, his successor at Lindisfarne, died not long after, and Wilfrid was
chosen to succeed him.
Wilfrid evidently aimed at reviving the metropolitan jurisdiction of
York. His hatred of Scottish heresy led him to go for consecration to
. Compiegne in Gaul.” This journey, and his delay in returning, seem to
have been the first causes of a quarrel with the Northumbrian princes.
| When he came back to Northumbria he found a Bishop of York appointed
_in his place, Ceadda, the brother of Cedd, an Englishman who had received
‘his education in an Irish monastery and adhered to the Scottish party.
' Wilfrid retired to Ripon and to the work of a missionary bishop in Kent
and Mercia until, in 669, Archbishop Theodore procured his acknowledgement
as Bishop of York." The next nine years were an epoch of prosperity for
Wilfrid, who was not only an administrator and leader of a party, but also a
devotee of religious art. He restored the ruined church at York begun by
Eadwine and continued by Oswald. At Ripon and Hexham he built
basilican churches,” and when travelling through Mercia he was accompanied
by his cantors, masons, and teachers of nearly every art. From the Continent
he brought back relics and vestments, and the wonderful development of
Northumbrian art in his day probably owed much to his personal influence.”
However, his power, his large possessions, and his unconciliatory temper
made him unpopular with Oswiu’s son, Ecgfrith.* In 678, he was deprived
of his diocese. Theodore consecrated three bishops to three subdivisions of
the see. Bosa took the place of Wilfrid at York. Not long after, Eadhaed,
Bishop of Lindsey, driven from his see by Mercian conquest, occupied
Wilfrid’s monastery at Ripon, perhaps as the capital of a new diocese.*
For eight years Wilfrid was a fugitive, preaching in Frisia, pleading his
case at Rome, wandering in Mercia and Wessex, and living as apostle and
bishop of the South Saxons at Selsey. Once he returned to Northumbria to
enforce Pope Agatho’s decree of restoration, and endured a lengthy im-
prisonment.” In 686 Ecgfrith’s successor, Aldfrith, restored to him his

*° Compiégne is mentioned by Bede alone as the place of consecration (op. cit. iii, 28). Eddius says that
the ceremony took place in Gaul (Hist. Ch, York [Rolls Ser.], i, 18, 19), but adds that it was performed by
twelve bishops.

" Eddius, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 21, attributes the appointment of Ceadda to Oswiu’s annoyance
with Wilfrid. His vexation at Wilfrid’s long absence in Gaul was doubtless fanned by the Quartodeciman
sympathizers at court. Bede (op. cit. iii, 28) does not make this clear, although later writers, e.g. Eadmer
(Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], i, 174), positively assert that Oswiu was instigated by the Scottish party.
Ceadda, on the restoration of Wilfrid, retired for a time to Lastingham (Bede, op. cit. iv, 3), but was soon
summoned to be Bishop of Mercia.

72 Eddius, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 23.

8 hid. 25, 32, 33-

* Ibid. 47, 48, 83.

% Bede, op. cit. iv, 12. Eddius, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 34, attributes the banishment of his hero
to the envy of Queen Eormenburh. Wilfrid’s support of Etheldreda, the first wife of Ecgfrith, against her
husband and her acceptance of the veil at his hands (Bede, op. cit. iv, 19) would explain the king’s prejudice
against him.

© Bede, loc. cit. The third bishop was Eata, who became Bishop of the Bernician province, with his see
probably at Lindisfarne. The Angl.-Sax. Chron. places the battle which led to the Mercian recovery of Lindsey
in 679 on the Trent, and Florence of Worcester says that Eadhaed was set over the church of Ripon in 681,
Eadhaed is reckoned as Bishop of Ripon in the lists prefixed to the MSS. of Florence of Worcester. But in
685 he signed as ‘Lindissi Episcopus.’. (Kemble, Cod. Dip/. i, 29 from MS. Dodsworth, ix, fol. 108.) On the
whole this indicates that, as Abbot of Ripon, he still maintained a territorial style which he had lost and another
bishop was using.

” Eddius, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 49, 50.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

church at Hexham, and eventually Ripon and the see of York. But this
reconciliation lasted only five years.* Wilfrid, again driven from Northum-
bria, found a refuge in Mercia, where the diocese of Leicester reckons him
among its bishops. A synod held at Austerfield, near Bawtry, deprived him
of all his Northumbrian possessions except Ripon (703). Wilfrid appealed to
Rome, enumerating his benefactions to the church of Northumbria—the true
Easter, the Roman tonsure, the primitive liturgical music, the Benedictine
rule2® His friends were shunned as excommunicated persons by those who
had seized his possessions. A council called at Rome by Pope John NI
was attended by Wilfrid and his accusers. Cleared of their charges against
him, he returned to England with letters recommending him to the Kings of
Mercia and Northumbria," and ordering the Archbishop of Canterbury to
call a fresh synod to restore him to his see. Aldfrith was unwilling to
receive him, but soon afterwards, on his death-bed, desired his recall.”
A synod was called by King Osred in 705, and met at a place by the Nidd.
Bosa, who had returned to the see of York, and John, Bishop of Hexham,
were present, and attempted to support the decrees of Austerfield.* Wilfrid
was restored to Ripon and Hexham, and spent the rest of his life as Bishop
of Hexham. Bosa seems to have died about this time, and John was
translated to York.** Wilfrid, visited by a disease which had attacked him
on his journey from Rome, died in 709 at Oundle, one of the monasteries
which he had founded on his domains in Mercia. His impetuousness
of temper and his intolerance of opposition must be admitted. His
advocacy of Roman and Gallican customs, and his scorn for his early
teachers, made him enemies among the supporters of Scottish rites. But the
victory which he won at the synod of Whitby was permanent. The better
sense of his enemies prevented the re-introduction of customs which isolated
Northumbria. By his missionary activity in Mercia and Sussex he exercised
a unifying influence upon English religion of more importance than his
dissensions with Ecgfrith and Aldfrith. In every part of England which
felt the power of Northumbrian religion Wilfrid’s personal influence was a
prominent factor, and helped incalculably to extend the work which had been
begun in England by Augustine. He was buried in his church at Ripon.™
John, who ruled the see of York from 705 until 718, is the second saint
of the church of York. His life was that of an untiring teacher and

* Eddius, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 63. The chronology of Wilfrid’s restoration in 686 is uncertain :
Bede (op. cit. iv, 29) says that he held the see of Lindisfarne for a year, between the death of Cuthbert and
the appointment of Eadberht. Florence of Worcester (an. 686) makes him Bishop of Hexham, and (an. 687)
of Lindisfarne after the death of Cuthbert. As Eata, Bishop of Hexham, died apparently in 686, Wilfrid
probably held his see for a time, and after the death of St. Cuthbert in 687, united it with Lindisfarne.
On Wilfrid’s recovery of the see of York or soon after, Eadberht was probably consecrated to Lindisfarne and
St. John of Beverley to Hexham.

; © Thid. 6 5, 67, 68, 69. For the probable identity of Ouestraefelda or Estrefeld with Austerfield, see
Raine’s note in Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 65. |
ie Ibid. i, 70: ‘vasa de quibus nostri vescebantur, lavari prius, quasi sorde polluta, jubebant, antequam
ab aliis contingerentur.’ 31 Ibid. i, 80, 81.
"Ibid. i, 88. The chief witness to Aldfrith’s dying words was his half-sister Elfled, Abbess of
Whitby, who testified to their tenor at the Council of Nidd. (Ibid. i, g1.)
7 Ibid. i, gt. 4 See Bede, op. cit. v, 3.
> Bede, op. cit. v, 19 5 Eddius, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 99.
Bede, op. cit. ¥, 2-6, relates the life and miracles of St. John, from whom he had received holy
orders. _ The a ita Sancti Johannis,’ written by Folcard, Abbot of Thorney, between 1066 and 1070, and
the ‘Miracula’ by William Kecell or Ketell and others, are printed in Hist, Ch. York (Rolls Ser), i, 239-347.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

preacher. Little is known of its actual details, but the stories of his miracles
apparently belong to the district immediately round Beverley,” and he is
chiefly famous as the founder of the monastery of Beverley, where he died in
721, about three years after he had resigned his see, and had consecrated to it
his pupil, the younger Wilfrid.* About 732, Wilfrid II followed the
example of St. John, and was succeeded by Ecgberht, a Northumbrian prince.
His episcopate, which lasted for thirty-four years, is remarkable for the
revival of the metropolitan dignity of York. He visited Rome some three
years after his consecration, and received the pall from Gregory III.” As
metropolitan, he consecrated bishops to the suffragan sees of Hexham and
Whithorn.” We here meet with the claim of the Archbishop of York to
exercise jurisdiction over the bishops of Scotland. Paulinus had been the
sole bishop of Eadwine’s kingdom, and the extent of his diocese was limited
only by the boundaries of Eadwine’s conquests. In practice, these stopped at
the Forth, but the conquest and Christianization of the northern tribes was a
possible achievement. Since that day, the Northumbrian diocese had been
subdivided. The restoration of the pall to York gave its bishop provincial
authority over the prelates of the ancient united monarchy, and he was not
slow to exercise it over districts which were thus theoretically within his
scope."

In the time of Ecgberht’s successor, Ethelbert or Albert, York became for
the first time the effective centre of the diocese. The monastic system,
which prevailed at Ripon and Beverley, never took root at York. Ecgberht’s
episcopate synchronized with the regulation of the system of canonical
chapters by St. Chrodegang. It seems probable that a body of canons,
modelled more or less on St. Chrodegang’s system, served the church of
York in Ecgberht’s days. A school of clerks grew up in connexion with
the metropolitan church, and Ethelbert, a relative of Ecgberht, became its
master.” His pupil Alcuin speaks with enthusiasm of a range of teaching
which included grammar, rhetoric, song, astronomy, physical geography,
natural history, and theology. When, in 780, Ethelbert retired, he gave over
the school to Alcuin, with his library. The list of the authors contained in
this library is given by Alcuin. Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, Lucan, Statius,
represented classical literature ; later philosophers, historians, grammarians,

8’ Wetadun or Betendune (Bede, op. cit. v, 3; Folcard, Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], i, 248) is usually
identified with Watton. ‘The via of Earl Puch (Bede, op. cit. v, 4) is called by Folcard (Hist. C4. York

[Rolls Ser.], i, 249) South Burton, and Earl Addi’s church (Bede, op. cit. v, 5 ; Folcard, Hist. Ch. York
{Rolls Ser.], i, 350) was in the neighbourhood.

38 The date of St. John’s resignation is not absolutely fixed. "The anonymous‘ Chronicon Pontificum,’ which
was continued by Stubbs, in Hist. CA. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 329, says that he spent four years at Beverley, with
which the metrical continuator of John of Allhallowgate agrees (ibid. ii, 472, 1.113). The Angl.-Sax. Chron.
an. 721; Folcard, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 259, and Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 329, state
that he was a bishop for thirty-three years, eight months, and fourteen days. His consecration to Hexham
probably took place in 687. See note 28 above.

8 Angl.-Sax. Chron. an. 735. Symeon, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 253, 254. Ecgberht’s application
for the pall may have been a direct consequence of the letter addressed to him by Bede (Hist. C4. York [Rolls
Ser.], i, 4.13).

“© Angl.-Sax. Chron. an. 737, 763. Frithwald, Bishop of Whithorn, who died in 763, was consecrated
at York in 733 or 734. His successor received consecration at Adlingfleet.

“ During the reigns of Oswiu and his successors and the pontificate of Wilfrid, the Archbishop of
Canterbury exercised what was practically metropolitan influence in Northumbria. The subdivision of York
diocese in 678, as well as the first restoration of Wilfrid in 669, were the work of Archbishop Theodore, and
Archbishop Berhtwald was present at the synods of.Austerfield and the Nidd.

* Alcuin, ‘Carmen de Pontt. et Sanctis Eccl. Ebor.’ Hist. C+. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 391, 1. 14.30.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

poets, the principal fathers of the Church, and, among recent writers, Bede
and Aldhelm are mentioned.® The fame of the school suffered eclipse by
Alcuin’s retirement to the court of Charles the Great, but in the annals of
English scholarship, Northumbrian Christianity may lay claim to a premature
eminence.

Ethelbert also rebuilt his cathedral church, which was burned down in
741.4% Eanbald and Alcuin were, under his direction, the architects of the
new church, which with its lofty walls, its aisles, its high-pitched roofs, glass
windows, and panelled ceilings, and with its thirty altars, rivalled the basilicas of
Ripon and Hexham.* This church stood until the disastrous events of 1069.
Ethelbert appointed Eanbald his coadjutor before his death, which took place
in 780. Eanbald died in 796, and was succeeded by a namesake, a pupil of
Alcuin. One or other of these prelates presided over a synod of the
Northumbrian church at Pinchanhalch.” But the history of their episcopates
coincides with the civil dissensions of the Northumbrian kings, and the early
invasions of Northumbria by the Northmen.* Of Wulfsige (812) and
~ Wigmund (831) next to nothing is known,” and the dates of their accessions
are merely approximate. In 867, when Wulfhere was archbishop, the
Danish army came to York. Wulfhere escaped to Addingham in Wharfe-
dale, and subsequently was expelled from his diocese,” to which, however, he
afterwards returned.

To Ethelbald (895) and to the obscure Rodewald, succeeded Wulf-
stan. In g26 Northumbria was united by Athelstan to his kingdom.”
Wulfstan was appointed archbishop by Athelstan, who in 930 granted the
district known as Amounderness, including South Cumberland and North
Lancashire, from the Cocker to the Ribble, to the church of York.”
Athelstan is also accounted the founder of the liberties of Ripon and
Beverley.” Wulfstan, in 943, rebelled with Anlaf, the son of Sihtric, against
Athelstan’s half-brother Eadmund, and held Leicester against him. In 947,

“ Angl.-Sax. Chron. an. 741, mentions the burning of the city. Roger of Hoveden (C4ron. [Rolls Ser.],
i, 6) notes the burning of the monasterium, giving the date as Sunday, 23 Apr. (second Sunday after Easter).

* Alcuin, Hist. CA. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 394, ll. 1506-19.

“ Angl.-Sax. Chron., Symeon of Durham, and Roger of Hoveden agree in fixing the accession of Eanbald I
and the death of Ethelbert in 780 ; Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 336, agrees with them ; Dixon
and Raine, Fasti Edcr. 106, incline to 782.

“ A synod here is noticed by Angl. Sax.-Chron. an. 787, and by Roger of Hoveden (Chron. [Rolls
Ser.], i, 12). Hoveden (op. cit. i, 16), following Symeon of Durham, notes another synod at ‘ Pinchanhal’
in 798 under the presidency of Eanbald II. The form ‘ Pinchanhalch’ is that used by Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York
(Rolls Ser.), 11, 336, 337, who places the synod under Eanbald II. Possibly there were two separate councils
at this unidentifiable spot.

** See Angl. Sax.-Chron. an. 793 [795], 798 [800].

“ Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 338, says that ‘ Wlsius’

: was archbishop for eleven years, and
‘Wimundus’ for twelve, oe

and that there was an interregnum of sixteen years after Wigmund’s death. Roger of
Wendover places Wulfsige’s death and Wigmund’s accession in 831 (Matt. Paris, Cron. May. (Rolls Sel,
i, 375), and gives 854 for Wigmund’s death and the accession of Wulfhere (ibid. 383).
Wulfhere received the pall in 854 (op. cit. i, 36).

* Angl.-Sax. Chron., Hoveden, and Wendover give accounts of this disaster sub an. 867. Symeon ol
Durham says, “Inter has strages remotius se agebat apud Hatyngham episcopus,’ and notes his e
thse is _ . of King Ecgberht ‘ post septem annos’; Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 255.

ngl.-Sax. Chron. an. 926 ; Rog. Wendover (Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. [Rolls Ser.], i i
” Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 15. ; peers
® Ibid. ii, 263, 264. Dixon and Raine, Fasti Ebor. 79, 903; Sanctuarium Dunelmense, &c. (Surt.

Soc.), and Dr. J. T. Fowler, Mem. of the Ch. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 33, 34.
* Angl.-Sax. Chron. an. 943.

Hoveden says that

xpulsion -a:

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Vulfstan and the Northumbrian witan swore fealty to Eadred. But next
car Wulfstan was implicated in a second revolt. | Eadred harried
[orthumbria, and burned the minster at Ripon. Wulfstan’s punishment
‘ems to have been delayed till 952, when he was imprisoned at Jedburgh.
xpelled from his diocese he retired to Dorchester, where he ‘obtained a
ishopric,’ and in 957 died at Oundle. His successor at York was a Dane,
skytel.

oe 972, Oskytel was succeeded by his kinsman, Oswald, Bishop of
Vorcester.*7 Educated under the protection of Oda, the Danish Archbishop
f Canterbury, and instructed in the Benedictine rule at Fleury, he became
ne of the prime movers in the restoration of monastic discipline. ‘ Impiger
1onachus’ is the epithet given to him by his anonymous biographer. Seven
1onasteries in the diocese of Worcester owed their origin or reformation to
im, and he was the joint founder of the fenland monastery of Ramsey. When
‘dgar the Peaceable sent him to York, he was allowed to retain his bishop-
ic of Worcester, in order that his monks there might not be deprived of
is pastoral care. In Yorkshire, the monasteries destroyed by the Danes
ty deserted and in ruins. Oda, some years previously, had visited Ripon
nd had carried away the body of St. Wilfrid, as the Canterbury monks con-
cantly asserted, or of his later namesake, to Canterbury.” Oswald paid the
uined church a visit, and found there the remains of one of the Wilfrids and
f other Saxon abbots.“ These he appears to have enshrined at Ripon.”
tis probable that he rebuilt the church and re-established the monastery.
Tis biographer clearly states that he revived the monastic life at York,”
ut monastic reform seems to have been less actively pursued in Northumbria
hanin Mercia. Oswald lived tillgg2. Aldulf, Abbot of Peterborough, suc-
eeded him at York and Worcester, and translated his body from its burial-place
n Worcester Abbey toa new shrine.” Danish invasions, before Oswald’s death,
1ad begun to disturb the country anew. In such circumstances, efforts after
. monastic revival must have had little chance of success. An invasion in 993
lrove the congregation of St. Cuthbert from Chester-le-Street southward with
heir patron’s body. They rested for a while at Ripon, before their final removal

5° Angl.-Sax. Chron. an. 948 ; Rog. Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 56. See also William Malmesbury,
rest. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 7.

5° Angl.-Sax. Chron. an. 948 ; Rog. Hoveden, loc. cit. Angl.-Sax. Chron. and Flor. Worcester give
ie date of Wulfstan’s translation to Dorchester as 954 ; Hoveden and Wendover as 953.

5’ The anonymous ‘ Vita Oswaldi,’ printed in Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 399 seq., is a work of very
igh historical value. Raine also prints Eadmer’s ‘ Vita’ and ‘ Miracula Sancti Oswaldi’ (ibid. ii, 1 seq.), the
Vita Sancti Oswaldi’ by Senatus, Prior of Worcester (ibid. ii, 60 seq.), and two short lives of the saint, the
:cond by Capgrave (ibid. ii, App. 489 seq.).

58 So Oswald’s anonymous biographer, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 439.

5° Eadmer, ibid. ii, 28, says that this was due to St. Dunstan.

® Oda asserts this in the preface, attributed to him, which precedes the metrical life of St. Wilfrid by
‘ridegoda, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 106, and the story is told by Eadmer, ‘ Vita Wilfridi,’ ibid. i, 224,
25. . Eadmer, however, wrote as a partisan of Canterbury, and his admission that ‘aliquantula pars’ of the
ody was left at Ripon may have been made in order to evade the fact that Oswald and his earlier biographer
em to have had no doubt as to the authenticity of the relics discovered at Ripon.

*! See Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, pref. p. xliii.

* «Vita Oswaldi,’ Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 462. Eadmer’s account, ibid. ii, 30, is confused and vague,
wing to his desire to emphasize the translation of the relics to Canterbury by Oda.

% Tbid. i, 462. Raine makes the passage refer to Ripon ; of which it is doubtless true. But it refers in
ie first place to York : ‘ de loco in quo ejus pontificalis cathedra posita est, quid referam, quidque dicam ?’

6 Eadmer, ‘ Miracula S. Oswaldi,’ Hist. C4. York. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 45 seq. ‘The translation took place on
5 Apr. 1002. (Hoveden, Flor. Worcester, Wendover.)

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

to Durham. More than a century earlier, during the inroads which destroyed
the early Saxon monasteries, they had visited Yorkshire, and after wandering
through the northern dales, had made a temporary stay at Crayke, near
Easingwold, which King Ecgfrith had given to St. Cuthbert.®

In 1002 Wulfstan II, a monk of Ely,** succeeded to York and Worces-
ter. He has left us, in his homily to the English, a vivid picture of the days
of the later Danish persecutions, coloured with grief at the distress of his
country.” He died in 1023 ; but, in 1016, the arrangement by which York
and Worcester were held together seems to have come to an end ; for a bishop
was then appointed to Worcester.” Wulfstan’s successor at York, /Elfric
Puttoc, was appointed Bishop of Worcester by Harthacnut in 1040, but was
ejected next year to make room for the bishop whom he had supplanted.”
#lfric, who had been provost of the monastery of Winchester, went to Rome
in 1026, and received the pall from John XIX. He took part in the coro-
nation of Edward the Confessor in 1043. In his own diocese he was a
benefactor to the college of secular priests at Beverley, whose authentic
history begins with his translation of the body of St. John, and his gifts of
land to the foundation.” He died at Southwell, and was buried at Peter-
borough.” The next archbishop, Kinsius or Cynesige (1051-60), continued
FElfric’s work at Beverley.” Under these prelates, monks by education, the
secular churches of the diocese flourished. Ealdred, who became archbishop
in 1060, had been a monk of Winchester and Abbot of Tavistock, and was
consecrated Bishop of Worcester in 1046.% Nicholas II, who granted him
the pall after some demur, seems to have made his resignation of the see of
Worcester a condition of the grant.* What Worcester lost in Ealdred it
gained in St. Wulfstan, whom Ealdred consecrated in 1062.% The church
of York had not recovered the losses which the Danes had inflicted on it
during the past two centuries; and Ealdred kept twelve manors from the
possessions of the see of Worcester for himself and his expenses.” His
statesmanship was of service to him with William I; and he was the leader
of the company which proffered submission to the Conqueror at Berkhamp-
stead. He had crowned Harold: he crowned William and Queen Maud.
But, in 1069, the arrival of the Danish fleet in the Humber, and the defection
of Eadgar the Atheling and Waltheof, caused him such anxiety that he died

§ Symeon of Durham, followed by Hoveden (Céren. [Rolls Ser.], i, 42), gives the date of the first
wanderings of St. Cuthbert’s body as lasting from 875 to 882. The final removal to Durham took place
in 995.

6 Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 342. Flor. Worcester, an. 1023, &c., says that he was buried
at Ely. a Se Hoveden, and Wendover call him an abbot.

“Sermo Lupi ad Anglos quando Dani maxime persecuti sunt eos, quod fuit in di i regis.”
Hatton MS. in Bodl. (Jun. 99) is the most perfect one EONS eee

8 Flor. Worcester, sub anno.

® Ibid. sub anno 1040.

” Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 343.

™ Stubbs (ibid.), Hoveden, Wendover, and Flor. Worcester give the date of Elfric’s death as 1051 ;
Angl.-Sax. Chron., an. 1050, gives the day as 22 Jan.

Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 344.

. . = tases neue Wendover, sub anno.

ee letter of Nicholas II, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii : ’s visi
is told in Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, ae 347. a a aa
” Flor. Worcester, sub anno. Stigand was under interdict ; but it was to Stigand, not to Ealdred, that

Wulfstan made his profession of obedience ; and Ealdred disclaimed any purpose of extorti bmission from hi
6 Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 348. Me Bp Naan

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

within a week of the news.” Under Ealdred, the secular clergy of the church
of York, who had probably replaced the monks soon after Oswald’s death,
were brought under regular discipline. Their services and dress, their short-
comings in almsgiving and attention to the needs of the poor, their neglect
of the faithful departed, were reformed.” At York and Southwell he pro-
vided a frater for the canons, and founded prebends at Southwell. At Beverley
he completed the frater and dorter, built a new presbytery to the church, and
covered the whole building westward to Cynesige’s tower with a painted
ceiling. The church was enriched with a pu/pitum of brass, gold, and silver,
and a rood of German smith-work.”

William’s nominee to the see of York, Thomas, Treasurer of Bayeux,
found his diocese a desert. The cathedral, set on fire by the Norman garrison
of York, was in ruins. Three canons only remained out of seven. ‘Thomas
had to wait six months for consecration, until Lanfranc was appointed to
Canterbury. When the time came, Lanfranc required him to make a pro-
fession of obedience. Lanfranc had the support of William. A primate
with equal rights to those of Canterbury might prove an active abettor of
rebellion in the north. On the other hand, Thomas could plead the terms
of Pope Gregory’s famous letter on his own behalf. After some dispute,
Thomas contented Lanfranc with a verbal profession." The dispute was
renewed at the consecration of Anselm at Canterbury in 1093. Thomas
refused to consecrate until the words primatem totius Britanniae were left out
of Anselm’s petition.” A further source of controversy with Anselm was the
consecration of Robert Bloett to the see of Lincoln. Thomas claimed Lindsey
as part of his diocese ; ® and he had laid his interdict on the consecration of
Lincoln Cathedral. Eventually he accepted an agreement under some com-
pulsion ; but the claim to Lindsey was agitated at intervals for some time
afterwards.* Another result of the quarrel with Canterbury was the loss by
Thomas of the possessions which Ealdred had retained in the diocese of
Worcester ; * while, on the other hand, his agreement about Lincoln gave
him the priory church of St. Oswald at Gloucester.®

7 Stubbs, op. cit. ii, 349, 350, Hoveden, Flor. Worcester. All agree with Angl.-Sax. Chron. in the date
of his death as 11 Sept. The Danish landing had taken place before 8 Sept.

” Folcard, pref. to ‘Vita S. Johannis,’ which is dedicated to Ealdred, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.),
i, 141.

* The description is in Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 353, 364. It recalls Bishop Bernward’s
nearly contemporary work at Hildesheim. ,

© The chief authority for the history of the controversy from Thomas I to Turstin is Hugh, precentor
of York, whose narrative is printed in Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 98 seq.

| Hugh, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ti, 101. Lanfranc and Thomas went together to Rome to receive
the pall from Alexander II in 1071 ; Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Ecc/.v,2. For an account of their visit, and
their controversy there, see Dixon and Raine, Fasti Ebor. 148, 149

* Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 104, 105.

® Ibid. 105, 106. Stow, Louth, and Newark were claimed by the archbishops as ‘ propriae Sancti Petri
Eboracensis.’

* The church of Newark, which belonged to the Bishors of Lincoln, and was granted by them to the
Gilbertine priory of St. Katharine, was a fertile source of dispute, See R. E. G. Cole, ‘The Priory of
St. Katharine without Lincoln,’ in Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. xxvii, 264 seq. The ordination of the vicarage of
Newark, consequent on a serious dispute between two claimants, was made by Abp. Kemp at Southwell,
30 Sept. 1428 ; York Epis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 37.

Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 108. The matter was settled at a synod held at ‘ Pedred’ in
1070, according to Flor. Worcester and Hoveden, but probably rather later. Wulfstan had appealed for restitu-
tion on the death of Ealdred.

** See grant by William II ; Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser-), iii, 21 (York Epis, Reg. Greenfield, fol. 45).
Selby Abbey was also granted to Thomas as part of the compensation for Lindsey.

3 9 2

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

In the north Thomas consecrated and received professions of obedience
from not only the Bishop of Durham,* but Bishops of St. Andrews and
Orkney.” The metropolitan right of York over the Scottish bishops was
insisted on by Paschal II, after the death of Thomas.” In his own diocese
Thomas found sufficient difficulty in combating the nine years’ paralysis
which followed the harrying of Northumbria. The Norman grantees were
unready to take possession of fees in a country which was a solitude, preyed
upon by wild beasts and sparsely peopled by savages.” The evil name of the
district made the acquisition of new possessions for the church of York an
unprofitable task. Thomas’s great achievement was the rebuilding of his
cathedral, the restoration of the canons’ buildings, the foundation of the four
chief dignities of the church, and among them of the office of magister scolarum
or chancellor, and the establishment of the prebendal system. He died at
Ripon, but was buried in his cathedral church.”

In the Domesday Inquest the ecclesiastical property in the county
amounted to over twelve hundred carucates, of which about 950 were held by
the archbishop as tenant in chief. In York he had the regalities of his scyra,”
where his curva was, and held a third part of one of the remaining five scyrae
into which the city was divided after the building of the castle.* His most
important manor in the county was Sherburn-in-Elmet, which with its bere-
wicks contained g6 carucates and 352 acres of meadow-land.* Next in size
came Otley, with 60 carucates 6 bovates,” in great part waste. The liberty
of Ripon, in addition to St. Wilfrid’s league ® and two bovates in Aldfield,
included 43 carucates distributed over fourteen berewicks.” Twenty-one and
a half more carucates were in the soke of Ripon.® All the berewicks
except Markington lay waste.” Patrington, with four berewicks, contained
35 carucates 63 bovates."° In Bishop Wilton, with five berewicks, were
30 carucates 7 bovates.' There were 32 carucates in Weaverthorpe, in-
cluding two berewicks, and six carucates in Helperthorpe. The soke of
Weaverthorpe included 26 carucates 4 bovates.?

* He consecrated William of St. Carilef at Gloucester, 2 Jan. 1080-1, and Ranulf Flambard in St. Paul’s,
5 June 1099 ; Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 363. His confirmation of the privileges of the church
of Durham (Hist. CA. York [Rolls Ser.], iii, 17 seq.) carries, as Raine noted, very little evidence of its
authenticity.

“Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 363, mentions Foderoch, Bishop of St. Andrews, and Ralph,
Bishop of the Orkneys ; but see Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 167. The obedience of Scotland to York was agreed
upon by the king, the le-ate, and the English bishops and abbots at Windsor in 1072. This council fixed
the Humber and the northern boundary of the diocese of Lichfield as the dividing line between the
two provinces ; Malmesbury, Gest. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 353.

® Bull in Hist. CA. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 22.

© «Inter Eboracum et Dunelmum, nusquam villa inhabitata ; bestiarum tantum et latronum latibula magno
itinerantibus fuere timori’ ; Symeon of Durham, Hist. Regum (Rolls Ser.), ii, 188.

* Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 107 seq. ; Stubbs, ibid. ii, 362 seq. Thomas died 18 Nov. 1100.
ee with Hoveden and Flor. Worcester, says that he died at York. Stubbs, ibid. il, 364, gives Ripon as

e place.

* Dom. Bk. fol. 2984, col. 2. ‘In hac scyra habet archiepiscopus quantum rex habet in suis scyris.’

4 Ibid. fol. 298a, col. 1. * Tbid. fol. 3024, col. 1.

* Tbid. fol. 3034, col. 1. Sixteen berewicks are mentioned, lying for the most part in Wharfedale.

* Ibid. fol. 3034, col. 2. *Totum circa ecclesiam i leuga.’
* Thid. * Ibid.

* Ibid. ‘T.R.E. valuit Ripum xxxii lib., modo vii lib. et x sol.’
T.R.E. x lib. ; T.R.W. iii lib.

'® Tbid. fol. 3022, col. 2.

1 Ibid. fol. 3024, col. 2 5 34 carucates 7 bovates, according to the recapitulation.
* Itid. fol. 3032, col. 1,

Similarly for Otley the return is:

pe)

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Only one carucate and six bovates, included in St. Wilfrid’s league, are
mentioned as held by the Ripon chapter. The land of St. Peter comprised
about 270 carucates in the county,‘ and that of St. John of Beverley between
1g0 and 191 carucates.© The largest manor held by the canons of York
was North Newbald (28 carucates 2 bovates).* About 154 carucates, more
than a half of their property, lay waste, mostly within the district ravaged in
1069. About 60 carucates, held by Ulf before the Conquest, formed part of
his donation to St. Peter.7 Most of the property of the York chapter lay
in the vale of York and in Ryedale ; that of the Beverley canons lay in that part
of the wapentake of Harthill close to Beverley, and in Holderness.? The
carucate of St. John in Beverley was quit from geld.’ T.R.E. it had yielded
£24 to the archbishop and £20 to the canons. Now it continued to
yield £20 to the canons, but only £14 to the archbishop. About 45 caru-
cates of the canons’ land lay waste.

Seven manors, comprising 81 carucates, belonged to the Bishop of
Durham and St. Cuthbert before the Conquest.” Nearly a half of this pro-
perty was waste. ‘Two large manors in the East Riding, with some minor
property, were granted by William Ito the bishop. King Edward’s manor
of Howden, with eighteen berewicks, contained 51 carucates 6 bovates, and
had soke of 20 carucates 6 bovates. All the berewicks and part of the soke-
land lay waste. In Morcar’s manor of Welton, with four berewicks, there
were 39 carucates, and 35 carucates 5 bovates in soke-land. Most of the
soke-land lay waste." The Yorkshire property of the bishop amounted to
243 carucates 5 bovates, of which not much less than half was uncultivated.

The Abbot of St. Mary’s appears in the list of tenants in chief ;” but no

5 Dom. Bk. fol. 3034, col. 2.

‘The actual number, mentioned as ‘Terra Archiepiscopi,’ is 236 carucates 4 bovates. Add to this
314 carucates on fol. 2982, col. 2; 4, col. 1. This makes a total of 268 carucates.

5 One hundred and ninety carucates 5 bovates. Of this, however, the archbishop held 70 carucates
after the Conquest, contained in 23 berewicks. See note 8. ® Dom. Bk. fol. 3024, col. 2.

7In the Nomina Villarum of 1316 (Surtees Soc.), p. 368, the following vi//ae formed the liberty
of St. Peter: Cottam, Langtoft, Newbald, Barnby-on-the-Moor, Dunnington, in the East Riding ;
Osbaldwick, Strensall, Haxby, Stillington, Husthwaite, Carlton Husthwaite, Tollerton, Alne, in the
North Riding ; and Acomb inthe Ainsty. It may be added that, in the same survey, the vid/ae held by the
archbishop in the liberty of Ripon were these (ibid. 331) : Ripon, Littlethorpe, Bishop Thornton, Stainley,
Bishop Monkton, and Sharow ; the canons held Bridge Hewick and Skelton ; thirteen vi/ae were held by
other proprietors. In the liberty of Beverley (ibid. 318), Beverley belonged to the archbishop, and ten
villae were held by lay tenants.

8 The entries relating to Beverley in Dom. Bk, occupy fol. 3042, col. 1 & 2. The berewicks of the manor
of Beverley (col. 2) were twenty-five in number, three in Harthill, the rest in Holderness. ‘Two in Harthill
were held by the canons ; the remaining twenty-three seem to have been the archbishop’s.

® Dom. Bk. fol. 3042, col. 1. Cf. fol. 2984, col. 2, where the privileges of the chapter-lands are thus
mentioned : ‘in omni terra S. Petri de Euruic et S. Johannis et S. Wilfridi et S. Cutberti et S. Trini-
tatis .... rex... . non habuit nec comes nec aliquis alius aliquam consuetudinem.’

Ibid. fol. 3044, col. 2. These lay in the North Riding, viz., in Howgrave and Hutton
Conyers with their soke, Crayke, Sessay with its soke, Knayton with one berewick, Brompton-in-Allertonshire,
Girsby, Deighton, and Winton (near Sigston).

" Tbid. fol. 3044, col. 1,2. Morcar’s manor of Lund also belonged to the Bishop of Durham. In
these manors we have the nucleus of the important enc/aves of the see of Durham in Allertonshire and How-
denshire. In 1316 the vil/ae held by the bishop were as follows [Nom. Vill. (Surtees Soc.), 316, 340] :—In
the liberty of Howden : Howden, Kilpin with Thorpe and Belby, Skelton, Saltmarshe, Knedlington, Asselby,
Barmby Marsh, Eastrington, Newland and ‘ Grenhaik,’ Riccall and Cliff, Hemingbrough and Brackenholme, a
moiety of South Duffield, Walkington with Risby, Welton, Brantingham, Ellerker, and Melton. In the
liberty of Allerton: Northallerton, Thornton-le-Beans, Romanby, Borrowby, Knayton with Brawith, Bromp-
ton, Osmotherley, and Sowerby-under-Cotcliffe. Twenty-six vilize in Howdenshire and twenty-three in
Allertonshire were held of the bishop by various proprietors.

% Dom. Bk. fol. 2984, col. 2. ‘ Abbatis de eboraco.’

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

corresponding section occurs in the text of the Survey. He held five manors
of Berenger de Todeni in Ryedale and the neighbourhood, comprising
20} carucates.'* The Abbot of Selby appears as tenant of 7 carucates in the
archbishop’s manor of Sherburn-in-Elmet."* For the present the secular
chapters were the principal ecclesiastical landowners after the bishops.

Eight churches in York are mentioned in the Survey," 50 in the East
Riding, 49 in the North Riding and Richmondshire, and 70 in the
West Riding; 39 priests in the East Riding, 48 in the West, 29 in
the North, are mentioned in connexion with as many churches. Two
churches at Wakefield had three priests between them; at Topcliffe
there was a church and two priests.'’ At Easington in Cleveland there was
a church without a priest. In certain places, where no church is named,
clergy are mentioned—two priests at Withernsea,” one priest at Bainton,®
Swine,” two places in the West Riding,” and four places in the North
Riding ;** two clerks at Patrington * and Everingham,* one clerk at Brandes-
burton,* a prebendary at Over Poppleton.” The statistical value of these
entries for our purpose is limited : in no sense can Domesday be used as a
Norman diocesan calendar. It is interesting, however, to read of churches
at Kirk Hammerton,”* Hovingham,” and Skipwith,” where important frag-
ments of late Saxon date remain, while Kirkdale and Stonegrave may with
some certainty be added to the list. The archbishop owned the church of
Cowlam.* Anschetil held the manor and church of Ainderby Steeple of the
Earl of Richmond.” An entry of some architectural interest relates to
Byland.*

Thomas was succeeded at York by Gerard, Bishop of Hereford, who had
taken an active part with William II against Anselm.** The contention with
Canterbury was renewed, and Gerard, unwilling to profess obedience to
Anselm, and ready to seize an advantage for York, prosecuted the cause of

* Dom. Bk. fol. 3144, col. 1. The manors were ‘Chirchebi’ (probably: Kirkby Misperton), ‘alia Chir-
chebi,’ Lastingham, Spaunton, and Dalby (in Pickering Lythe) with < Fornetorp.’

™ See note g4 above.

* Dom. Bk. fol. 2984, col. 1: The Bishop of Durham held All Saints’; the Count of Mortain had the
church of St. Cross ; William Percy had St. Mary’s (Castlegate), and held the advowson of St. Cuthbert’s of
Earl Hugh. Ibid. col. 2: Hugh Fitz Baldric had St. Andrew’s by purchase ; St. Martin’s (Coney Street)
belonged to Erneis de Burun ; Holy Trinity (Micklegate) to Richard Fitz Erfast ; and another church to
Odo Balistarius. Among York proprietors the Bishop of Coutances must also be reckoned, with some tene-

ment property ; ibid. fol. 298.

® Ibid. fol. 2994, col. 2. Ibid. fol. 3232, col. 2.
* Ibid. fol. 304, col. 1. ® Ibid. fol. 3234, col. 1.
* Ibid. fol. 3074, col. 1. 7! Ibid. fol. 3022, col. 2.

” Ibid. fol.3194, col. 1 : Widuntorp (W. ildthorpe #) ; fol. 3304, col. 2 : Ritone (Rigton in Bardsey parish).

“Ibid. fol. 3054, col. 2: Slingsby; fol. 3272, col. 2: Chirchebi (Kirkby Knowle) and Sudtune
(Sutton-under-Whitestone-Cliff) ; fol. 3274, col. 1. : Martrebi (Marderby in Feliskirk parish).

* Thid. fol. 3024, col. 2. * Thid. fol. 3024, col. 2.

* Thid. fol. 3044, col. 2.

¥ Ibid. fol. 3034, col. 1. One other entry may be cited from fol. 3244, col. 2, in connexion with the
soke of Beeford (East Riding), which lay in Dodintone (Dunnington), &c. : ‘nunc presbyter drogonis [de
Bevrere] habet ibi unam carucatam.’ See also Sherburn-in-Elmet, note 94 above (p. 10).

* Ibid. fol. 3294, col. 1. ® Ibid. fol. 3274, col. 2.
* Ibid. fol. 3284, col. 1. * Tbid. fol. 3032, col. 1.
* Ibid. fol. 3102, col. 1.

* Ibid. fol. 3204, col. 2: ‘In Begeland ... . presbyter et ecclesia lignea.’

“ Ord. Vit. Hist. Eccl. lib. x, c. 15. Gerard was nephew of Walkelin, Bishop of Winchester (ibid. x, 2).
For Mapes’s story of the cause of his translation to York, see Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 159 : it is certain,
however, that Maurice, Bishop of London, and not Gerard, crowned Henry I (Ord. Vit. op. cit. x, 15 ;
Hoveden, Wendover, Flor. Worcester).

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Henry I before Paschal II. Having secured his pall, he came home with
a somewhat inaccurate report of the pope’s goodwill to the king. At the
Council of Westminster (1102) he behaved intemperately to Anselm,’ but
in attempting to consecrate the royal nominees whom Anselm had refused to
recognize he was foiled by their scruples.™

The arbitrary conduct of Henry helped on a reconciliation between the
two archbishops. At the Council of London (1107) Gerard professed verbal
obedience to Anselm, and took part with him in the consecration at Canter-
bury of the bishops who had scrupled to receive consecration from himself.”
A letter attributed to Gerard asks Anselm for advice in dealing with the
canons of York, who in spite of the decisions of 1107 kept their wives.
Some were non-resident; others refused to profess obedience. Gerard
himself, in former days, had sold the reversion of a prebend to the holder’s son.
When he offered to restore the price, the purchaser would not take it; he
now begs Anselm to annul the sale.” Although Gerard here affects to
regard monasticism as ‘ the happy state of the primitive church,’ he increased
the possessions of the canons over whose shortcomings he thus mourned. He
founded the prebend of Laughton-en-le-Morthen, and gave them the churches
of Aldborough (near Boroughbridge), Driffield, Kilham, Pickering, and
Pocklington. To Selby Abbey he gave the church and soke of Snaith.” He
died at Southwell in May 1108.”

The dispute with Canterbury was renewed on the election of Thomas,
provost of Beverley, to the archbishopric. Thomas II was a nephew of
Thomas I, and his nomination apparently was urged by the chapter of
York.® As archbishop-elect he joined with Anselm in promulgating the
decrees of 1107 against marriage of the clergy.“ His chapter nevertheless
encouraged him vehemently to refuse obedience to Canterbury, but the
king, after the death of Anselm, ceased to support the cause of York ; and
Cardinal Ulric, the papal legate, sent from Rome with the pall, declined to
advise the chapter. ‘Thomas eventually submitted, because, so his supporters
stated, he was too fat to bear hardships and the strain of conflict.” He was

3 Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 110, says that at Rome ‘in pluribus causarum actionibus scientia
et facundia ejus laudata et approbata.’

3% Church, St. Anselm, 308, 309. The testimony of Eadmer, on which Church’s account is founded,
was doubtless biased against the York version of the story ; but its outlines are probably correct.

37 Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 110. %8 Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 161.

3 Flor. Worcester, Chron. an. 1107; Hoveden, op. cit. i, 164. Hugh does not mention Gerard’s
profession : Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 365, 366, chose to disbelieve in it. Both Flor. and
Hoveden call Gerard Anselm’s suffragan. The actual character of the profession was a compromise : see
Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 14, 15.

* Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 23 seq. Some wrongdoers who called forth special complaints were
those ‘qui archidiaconi infra diaconi ordinem sunt constituti.’

" Hugh, Hist. Cb. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 111. The royal grants by which Gerard obtained these
churches are printed ibid. iii, 29 seq.

“ Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 366. For circumstances connected with the death and
burial see Fasti Ebor. 162, 163.

* Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 111, 112. Henry I was about to promote him to the see of
London, when the canons asked for his consecration to York. ‘The later unpopularity of Gerard with his |
chapter, owing doubtless to his submission to Anselm and his intended reforms, is implied by Hugh in the
brevity with which he treats Gerard, and the language in which he greets Thomas.

“ Flor. Worcester, sub anno ; Hoveden, Céron. (Rolls Ser. dod i, 165.

* Hugh gives the text of their letter to him on the point, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 112 seq.
They found praise for Gerard’s conduct in 1102 (ibid. ii, 114) ; ‘ Respice ad Girardum archiepiscopum ! hos
probe, hoc viriliter, hoc egit egregie !’

“© Hugh, ibid. ii, 122, 123. * Tbid. ii, 124.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

consecrated in St. Paul’s, 27 June 1109, by the Bishop of London, during the
vacancy at Canterbury.” The terms of his profession, made to no archbishop
in person, were safeguarded by the king’s order ; and the Bishop of Durham
declared publicly that it was allowed by royal dispensation only, without
prejudice to any future archbishop.* The legate attempted, now that
matters were settled, to bring Thomas to book for making his profession, but
without success. Thomas lived for less than five years after his consecration.
His biographers praise his virtues." While adding to the possessions of the
church of York® his chief activity lay in regulating the chapter of South-
well and founding their church, the ecclesia matrix of Nottinghamshire,
and in establishing canons at Hexham, which had passed to the see of York
after the disgrace of Bishop Flambard. Under Turstin, Augustinian Canons
were established in St. Wilfrid’s northern basilica.

Six months after the death of Thomas II, Turstin, a sub-deacon, canon of
St. Paul’s and secretary to the king, was promoted to the see, which he ruled
for twenty-six years (1114-40). He received deacon’s orders from the
Bishop of Winchester ; but, anxious to avoid receiving the priesthood in the
province of Canterbury, he was ordained priest in Normandy by Ranulf
Flambard.* Before visiting Normandy he was enthroned at York by the
Bishop of Chester. In Ralph d’Escures, the new Archbishop of Canterbury,
he found an astute opponent who had influence with the king. The
controversy about the profession dragged on through Turstin’s pontificate.
At Salisbury (1116) Turstin formally resigned his see to the king ; *” but
Henry was unwilling to appoint, and the chapter of York to receive,
another archbishop.® In 1118 the king gave him back the see; and
Turstin revisited York.” But Ralph, in spite of papal mandates, refused to
consecrate. Calixtus II summoned Ralph and Turstin to a council at Reims
(1119), and ordered Ralph to consecrate without delay.” Eventually, in
October 1119, Calixtus himself consecrated Turstin at Reims, and invested
him with the pall. The king forbade Turstin to return to England,” and
for some two years he remained with the pope in France.* At Gap, in March
1119-20, Calixtus forbade any profession of obedience to Canterbury,®™ and
gave power to the suffragans of York to consecrate their metropolitan, if the

“© Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 124, 125.

“ Ibid. The profession is given in Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 33, 34. Tbid. ii, 126, 127.

5 Tbid. ii, 128. See the glowing character of Thomas given by the chapter of York in their petition
for consecration (Hist. C4. York [Rolls Ser.], iii, 33), and the story told by Hoveden, Céron. (Rolls Ser.), i,
168-9. Thomas was still young when he died.

*? Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 127.

Ibid. At Hexham, two secular canons were sent to assist the hereditary priest, Eilaf, in restoring his
church and its services ; see Savage and Hodges, Hexham Abbey Record (1907), 28. Turstin visited ‘ Hes-
toldesham ’ immediately after his enthronement (Hugh, Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], ii, 130).

* Ibid. u, 129. Thomas died 19 Feb. 1113-14, according to Hugh ; 24 Feb. according to Hoveden,
op. cit. i, 168. ‘Turstin was appointed 16 Aug. 1114.

® Hugh, Hist. C4. York (Roils Ser.), ii, 129, 130, 132. 5 Ibid. 130.

57 Thid. 137. 8 Ibid. 140.

* Ibid. 149, 150. Turstin had gone to Normandy with Henry in 1117 (ibid. 140).

See letters, ibid. 159, 160. A long letter of complaint from Ralph to Calixtus about Turstin (MS.
eagle ve ee Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 228 seq.

id. 164, 165. e pall was granted on the twelfth da ion (ibi

es os Pp g day after the consecration (ibid. 167).

ae Hugh speaks of the honour in which he was held by the pope and cardinals (ibid. 173); ‘in
conciliis, et causis, et judiciis erat inter illos quasi unus ex illis,? &c. See also ibid. 175, 176 .

* Ibid. 179. : :

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

‘Archbishop of Canterbury refused.© Turstin was recalled to England in
1121, after his mediation had averted a war between England and France.”
An immense crowd witnessed his re-enthronement at York with enthusiasm.
His popularity was increased by his remission of the annual chrism-money,
6d. from parish churches, 4d. from chapels, and of fees for sacraments.”
His troubles began anew with the death of Ralph and the succession
of William of Corbeuil to the throne of Canterbury.% Visits to Rome
were made in 1123 and 1125 by both archbishops ; and the favour shown
there to Turstin did not improve his position at home.® The king attempted
to arrange a compromise, by which, in return for a profession, verbal on
Turstin’s part, but absolute on that of his successors, the sees of Bangor,
Chester, and St. Asaph were to pass to the province of York.”
Archbishop William took advantage of a vagueness in wording; and
Turstin would make no profession.” He was present at the council held at
Westminster by John of Crema, the cardinal-legate (1125). But at
Christmas 1126 he was not allowed to place the crown on the king at
Windsor, and his cross-bearer was thrust out of the chapel.” About 1127
the king’s sympathies apparently veered towards Turstin,” and further records
of the dispute are wanting.

Turstin also engaged in a controversy as to the metropolitical claims of
York over the Scottish bishoprics. The English suffragans of York were
the Bishop of Durham, and, after 1133, the Bishop of Carlisle.” ‘There was
no doubt about the suffragan position of the Bishop of Whithorn : Galloway
had formed part of the Northumbrian kingdom, and the see was of
Northumbrian foundation.” On its revival (1125), its Scottish incumbent
looked to Turstin for consecration,” and made his profession to him.” The
connexion of Galloway with York lasted in name until the creation of the
archbishopric of St. Andrews in 1472.” Norwegian kings recognized the
Archbishop of York from time to time as metropolitan of Man and perhaps

®§ Calixtus also issued a bull (in Hist. C4. York [Rolls Ser.], iii, 41 seq.) confirming the churches of
Hexham, Beverley, Ripon, Southwell, and St. Oswald at Gloucester to the see of York.

6 Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 188, 190, 191. Turstin’s mediation was exercised by
Michaelmas, 1120. His recall seems to have been hastened by Henry’s grief at the loss of the White Ship ;
he crossed from Normandy at the end of January 1120-1.

* Ibid. 191, 192.

® Ibid. 199, 200 ; William was consecrated by his own suffragans, ‘ Eboracensi ecclesiae injuria irrogata.’
Turstin offered to consecrate William at Canterbury, but the offer was refused.

® Hugh tells the story of the two visits at length (ibid. 201-16).

Ibid. 211. St. Asaph is described as ‘tertium inter hos duos medium sed pro vastitate et barbarie
episcopo vacantem.’

1 [bid. 213, 214. The vagueness of wording lay in the description of St. Asaph mentioned above ; ‘sed
Willelmus episcopus de tertio episcopatu sine nomine nec mentionem se audisse constanter negavit.’

7 Flor. Worcester, Chron. an. 1125.

3 Ibid. an. 1126 ; Rog. Wendover (Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. [Rolls Ser.], ii, 153).

™ Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 218. :

75 See letter of Innocent II to Stephen (Hiss. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], iii, 60, 61), from which it appears that
the formalities for the erection of the see of Carlisle were not completed till 1136. About 1130 Innocent
wrote to Turstin, giving him power to make ‘ novas parochias’ in his province, ‘indempnitate matris ecclesiae
conservata.’” © Bede, Hist. Eccl. v, 23.

- Honorius II, to elect of Candida Casa, 5 id. Dec. (1125) (Hist. C4. York [Rolls Ser.], iii, 48, 49).

Ibid. iii, 60.

The valuable documents relating to the election of Gilbert of Melrose as Bishop of Whithorn in
1235 by the canons of the Premonstratensian cathedral priory are to be found in Raine, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls
Ser.), iii, 144 seq. A series of documents, indicative of the declining authority of York over Whithorn, are
printed from Reg. Melton in Letters from Northern Registers (Rolls Ser.), 287-9, 335-9, 374, 375.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

of Orkney.” Man was closely connected with Furness Abbey ;* and even
after its bishop was a suffragan of Trondhjem it was more convenient for him
to seek consecration at York.” Thomas I and Gerard consecrated bishops
of Orkney.® But the second of these, at any rate, was not recognized in his
diocese ;* and Ralph, whom Turstin consecrated, was a wanderer in France
and the north of England. He assisted at the consecration of Turstin,® and
took the place of the archbishop at the battle of the Standard. From r1s4q,
when Orkney became a suffragan see of Trondhjem, we hear no more of the
claim of York. Thomas I was said to have consecrated a bishop of
St. Andrews.” Thomas II consecrated bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow,
and sent chrism and holy oil to Glasgow by one of his clerks.” After
Turstin’s consecration, Calixtus II forbade the irregular consecration of
Scottish bishops, and insisted on their obedience to their metropolitan.” In
1122 John, Bishop of Glasgow, obstinately refused his profession to Turstin.”
Three successive popes commanded his obedience without effect." The
Scottish bishops were encouraged in independence by their kings,” and
the petition of Alexander I for the consecration of the Bishop of St. Andrews
by Canterbury complicated the dispute. Turstin consecrated the bishop in
1128, but forbore, at the request of David I, to require his profession. This
act weakened the bond between York and Scotland. Nearly half a century
later, William the Lion, when forced to make peace with Henry II,
acknowledged the supremacy of the English Church.* But in 1188,
Clement III, deciding between two claimants to St. Andrews, recognized the
independence of the Scottish bishops.* The claims of York were never
seriously advanced again; although Henry VIII in 1541 asked Archbishop
Lee to examine into the claim of his Church over Scotland in connexion with
his own claim to the Scottish crown.” Turstin maintained that the King of
Scots was the English king’s man.*’ Although illness prevented him from

© See letters of Olaf ‘rex Insularum’ to Turstin and the chapter of York relative to the bishop-elect of
the Isles (Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], iii, 58 seq.). The attitude of the kings towards the rights of York over
Orkney is more equivocal. Calixtus Il in 1119 orders the Kings of Norway to receive a bishop [Ralph]
consecrated at York (ibid. 39) ; and Honorius II in 1125 complains to King Sigurd of an intruder in the
see who probably was supported by the king.

* See letters of Olaf mentioned above : the Abbot of Furness was the apostle of Man, and the right of
electing the bishop was a privilege of the monastery (see letter of Innocent IV to Archbishop Gray, 15 Feb.
1243-4, ibid. 157, 158).

© Letter of Innocent IV, ibid. 158. The relation of the see of Man to its metropolitans is discussed by
Hill, Hist. Engl. Dioceses, 334 seq.

® Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 363, 367.

*“* This may be inferred from the fact that William, a Norwegian bishop, was consecrated to the sce of
the Orkneys about 1102. See Geoffry Hill, Hist. Engl. Dioceses, 331.

* Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 164, 166.

* His speech to the English forces is given at length by Henry of Huntingdon, Hist. Angl. lib. viii,
followed more briefly by Hoveden and Wendover.

*” See notes 88, 89, p. 10.

“ The consecrations of Turgot, Prior of Durham, to St. Andrews, and of Michael to Glasgow, are
mentioned by Hugh, Hist. CA. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 126, 127. See also ibid. iii, 37.

* Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 40, 41. ” Ibid. 44-47.

* Calixtus II, Hist. CA. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 47 ; Honorius II (ibid. 49, 50) ; Innocent II (ibid. 61, 62).

* The attitude of David I is gauged by a letter of Innocent II to Turstin, about 1135 (ibid. 63, 64):
‘super oppressionibus atque molestiis tibi et Eboracensi ecclesiae, prout accepimus, a rege Scotiae et Johanne
Glesguensi episcopo irrogatis, affectione paterna compatimur.’

* Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 51, 52.

™ Ibid. 83, 84.

* The text of the bull is given by Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 347 seq.

“ L. and P. Hen. VIII, xvii, 898. *” Hugh, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 215.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

being present, the victory of the northern barons over the Scots on Cowton
Moor (1138) was due in no small degree to Turstin’s initiative.”

The growth of monasticism was much furthered by Turstin, the last
few days of whose life were spent in Pontefract Priory.” Secular canons of
the greater churches of his jurisdiction, who had taken vows as monks or
canons regular, were allowed to keep two-thirds of their prebendal incomes.”
At the beginning of his episcopate, the chief religious houses of Yorkshire
were the Benedictine abbeys of Selby, St. Mary’s at York, Whitby, and the
Cluniac house at Pontefract... Soon after his election, the priory of
Augustinian canons afterwards known as Bolton was founded at Embsay
(1120). About a year later, Walter lEspec founded Kirkham Priory.
Other Augustinian houses founded in his pontificate were Guisborough (1129),
Warter (1132), Bridlington, Drax, and Nostell. Newburgh was founded in
1145. In 1131 Walter PEspec founded the first Cistercian monastery in
Yorkshire at Rievaulx. The order had already been established in the
diocese at Furness (1127), and Turstin in 1132 powerfully assisted the
foundation of Fountains Abbey. About 1134 a monastery was established at
Hode by the community which finally (1147) removed to the present Byland
Abbey. In 1145 Fors Abbey (afterwards Jervaulx) was founded, and in
1147 were founded Roche, Sawley, and Barnoldswick (afterwards Kirkstall).
Meaux was founded in 1150. ‘To much the same date belong the Gilbertine
houses of Malton and Watton. Premonstratensians settled at Easby in 1152.
Many smaller monasteries and nunneries were founded during the reigns of
Stephen and Henry II. Before the end of the century the Premonstratensian
houses of Egglestone and Swainby, the parent of Coverham, were in existence.’

The influence of the religious orders was felt in the dispute over the
election of a successor to Turstin. The Treasurer of York, William Fitz
Herbert, a nephew of King Stephen,* was elected by a majority of the
chapter. The election was opposed by Osbert, one of the archdeacons.
The Abbots of Fountains and Rievaulx, and the Priors of Guisborough and
Kirkham, accused William of simony. William was supported by the
Abbots of York and Whitby, and by the Bishop of Orkney,* and remained for
some time in possession. However, Eugenius III, a Cistercian, aided by the
advice of St. Bernard,’ deposed him, and consecrated Henry Murdac, Abbot
of Fountains, in his place.* Murdac was elected archbishop in July 1147,
with some contention, the Dean of York and Hugh Pudsey, the treasurer,’

% Henry of Huntingdon, Hist. Ang/. (Rolls Ser.), 262.

® Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 387, says that he resigned his archbishopric, entered the monastery
on 25 Jan. 1139-40, and died on 5 Feb. From this point the chronicle of the archbishops is continued by the
Dominican Thomas Stubbs, whose name is usually applied to the whole tripartite chronicle.

100 Ibid. ii, 386. 1 For the dates of these various foundations see ‘ Religious Houses’ below.

2 Page, Yorkshire Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc. 1894), i, pref. p. vii, notices that after 1250 the only monas-
tery established in the county was Haltemprice Priory, first founded at Cottingham in 1322. But the Charter-
houses at Hull and at Mount Grace, founded in 1378 and 1396, must also be reckoned.

3 Vita S. Willelmi, auctore anonymo, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 270 seq., and Stubbs, ibid. 390.
His father was Count Herbert ; his mother Emma, the king’s sister.

4 Stubbs, ibid. 389-91. A fuller account, mainly derived from John of Hexham, is printed ibid.

5 On St. Bernard’s part in the dispute, see a note by Morison, Life and Times of St. Bernard, 351, 352.

® Murdac, probably a Yorkshireman, had been a monk at Clairvaux and Abbot of Vauclair in Laon
diocese, before going to Fountains. See Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 210-13.

7 Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 393 (second account). Both dean and treasurer had been
appointed by William. The election took place at St. Martin’s Priory, outside Richmond, on 24 July.
Pudsey’s candidate was Master Hilary, a clerk of the Curia.

3 17 3

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

protesting, and was consecrated by Eugenius at Treves.’ Some of William's
party already had taken their revenge on the Cistercians by sacking Fountains.’
Pudsey stirred up the citizens of York against Murdac ; the men of Beverley
were fined by Stephen for admitting him. Unable to enter York, he retired
to Ripon, and excommunicated the treasurer and citizens.° In 1150-1 he was
enthroned at York ;" but when, two years after, he excommunicated those
who had taken part in the election of Pudsey to the bishopric of Durham,”
the city once more rose against him, and he had to flee. He died at Sherburn
in the same year (1153); and Anastasius IV restored William,"* who had
spent most of the interval in Sicily, and may be fairly absolved of complicity
in the excesses of his partisans. His return to York was greeted by a multitude
of citizens and country-folk (9 May 1154). The wooden bridge over the
Ouse broke down beneath the crowd, but no loss of life followed, and William
was held responsible for a miracle.'* Thirty days later he died in his palace.”
The circumstances of his restoration impressed the minds of men deeply.
Stories of his prophetic gifts and miracles wrought at his tomb went abroad,"
and he received canonization in 1226."

His successor was Roger of Pont I’Evéque, Archdeacon of Canterbury,
who received consecration from Archbishop Theobald.” Roger, in spite of his
connexion with Canterbury, had no mind for submission. The jealvusy
between the two metropolitan sees came to its height in his quarrel with
Becket, to whom he showed his enmity at the Council of Northampton, and
before the pope at Sens." In 1170 Roger crowned Prince Henry during
Becket’s exile. This brought about his excommunication by Alexander III,”
and Becket’s friends held him guilty of instigating the murder which took
place in December. A year later he solemnly exculpated himself before the
Archbishop of Rouen.* He continued the contest with Becket’s successor.
At the synod of Westminster (1175) his proctors asserted his right to carry
his cross erect, and claimed the sees of Lincoln, Chester, Worcester, and
Hereford as members of the northern province, appealing to Rome on these
points, and on the immunity of St. Oswald’s at Gloucester from the jurisdic-

® Stubbs, Hist. CA. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 394 (second account). The date of the consecration was 7 Dec.
1148.

* Ibid. 392, 393 ; Mem. of Fountains (Surt. Soc.), i, 101, 102. This took place while the election was
as yet undecided, and seems to have been the ultimate cause of William’s deposition.

Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 394. " Tbid. The date was 25 Jan.

” Ibid. ii, 395. Geoffrey of Coldingham (Hist. Dunelm. Scriptores Tres [Surt. Soc.], p. 4) says that
St. Bernard joined Murdac in opposition. Murdac excommunicated Pudsey’s partisans, but absolved them at
Beverley, at the request of Archbishop Theobald (ibid. i, 5).

8 Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 395. 4 Thid. 396.

“ Ibid. 392; ‘ad Rogerum regem Siciliae, cognatum suum, divertit, et cum eo plurimis diebus
commoratus est.’

«Vita S. Willelmi,’ Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 275, 276.

” Stubbs, Hist. Ck. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 397. Hoveden (op. cit. i, 213), Wendover (Matt. Paris, op.
cit. il, 203), and others relate the tradition that he was poisoned inthe Eucharist. This scandal is the theme
of the hymn (MS. Cotton. Titus, A. 19, 150) given by Dixon and Raine, Fasti Ebor. 231, 232.

® Various ‘ Miracula S. Willelmi’ form an appendix to his anonymous life (Hist. Cs. York [Rolls Ser-],
ii, 278 seq.).

? See bull of Honorius III, 18 Mar. 1225-6 (Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.], iii, 127 seq.).

® See Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 234, with authorities. The consecration took place in Westminster
Abbey on 10 Oct. 1154.

” Hoveden, Céron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 224 seq.

" Ibid. ii, 6. The text of the bull is given.

*® See especially the Archbishop of Sens’ letter to the pope ; ibid. an. 1172.

* Wendover gives the date as 6 Dec. (Matt. Paris, CAron. Maj. [Rolls Ser.], ii, 284.)

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

tion of Canterbury. The last question was settled by the papal legate in
favour of York.* In 1176, at Northampton, Roger argued with William the
Lion and the Scottish bishops, in opposition to the plea of independence urged
by the Bishop of Glasgow.* Richard of Canterbury put forward his own
claim to Scottish obedience at the same council, but without success.”
During the legatine synod at Westminster in the same year a struggle between
Roger and the attendants of Richard took place. The king intervened and
arranged a truce between the archbishops.* At the Lateran council of 1179
a decree on the profession of obedience was issued in favour of Roger.”

Roger aided Geoffrey Plantagenet (1174) in taking the castle of Malzeard
from the Mowbrays.® At the end of the rebellion he made a treaty with
Hugh Pudsey by which the subordination of Hexham to the church of
Durham was limited, and the payment of synodals by the churches of
St. Cuthbert in Yorkshire was excused." In 1177 an agreement on the
claims of York over Lindsey was arranged with Geoffrey Plantagenet.”
Roger rebuilt the quire of York Minster * and the church of Ripon.* He
also built the palace at York,*®* and founded the chapel of St. Mary and the
Holy Angels on the north side of the cathedral. The canons objected to its
neighbourhood, and Roger made arrangements by which its warden was to
contribute towards their ceremonies on Holy Thursday.* Alexander III
wrote to the archbishop on the shortcomings of the canons, who drew their
prebendal stipends while neglecting their churches, and were in some cases
guilty of worse sin.” In another letter the pope commented on the admission
of mere priests, not canons of York, to celebrate mass at the high altar of the
minster.”

Roger died in November 1181, and was buried at York.” His treasure

8 Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 77. The question of cross-bearing was left undecided: a truce of
five years was arranged between the archbishops. ‘Two letters from Alexander III to Roger—(1) 28 Jan.
(1160-1) ; free licence to carry cross erect:: (2) n.d. Reversal of a decision against Roger in an appeal by
Archbishop Becket—are printed in Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 69, 70, 73, 74+

* Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 91, 92, seq.

7 Ibid. The arguments for the supremacy of Canterbury over Scotland had been pleaded by Archbishop
Ralph in his letter to Calixtus II in 1119 (in Hist. C4. York [Rolls Ser.] ii, 228 seq.).

8 Hoveden, Cé4ron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 92, 93.

53} Text in Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 70, 71, and Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 79 seq. The
churches of St. Cuthbert are enumerated as follows :—In the archdeaconry of John, son of Letold (Cleveland) :
Hemingbrough, Skipwith, Northallerton, Birkby, Osmotherley, Sigston, Leake, North Otterington, Crayke,
Holtby ; in the archdeaconry of Geoffrey (York) : All Saints, Pavement, St. Peter the Little (now demolished),
and a mediety of Holy Trinity, all in York ; in the archdeaconry of the treasurer (East Riding) : Howden,
Welton, Brantingham, Walkington. Hoveden’s text differs somewhat in detail from that in the Reg. Mag.
Album of the chapter, from which that in Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.) is printed.

Bull of Alexander III, 16 July 1177, printed in Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ili, 85.

3 Stubbs, Hist, Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 398 : ‘chorum. . . cumcryptis ejusdem . . . de novo construxit.’

* See letter in Walbran, Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 97, and Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 82, in which
Roger grants ‘ operi Beati Wilfridi de Ripon, ad aedificandam basilicam ipsius, quam de novo inchoavimus,
mille libras veteris monetae.’

5 Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 398+

* Ibid. 398, 399. Roger’s ordination of this chapel (often called St. Sepulchre’s) is printed in Hist.
Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 75 seq.

* Ibid. 78, 79. 8 Ibid. 82, 83.

* Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 400, says that he died on 26 Nov. at Sherburn. But Hoveden,
op. cit. ii, 264, gives the date of his death as 22 Nov. at York, and says that he had gone there from ‘ Cawda,’
where he was taken ill. Hoveden’s account is too circumstantial to be received with doubt : ‘ Cawda’ is
almost certainly an error for ‘ Cawod.’? Cawood was part of the barony of Sherburn, and thus Stubbs’s state-
ment may be partially reconciled with Hoveden’s. On the probable site of Roger’s tomb see Dixon and
Raine, op. cit. 250.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

was confiscated by the king,” and the see remained vacant till 1189, when
the canons elected the king’s half-brother, Geoffrey Plantagenet, bishop-elect
of Lincoln. Hubert Walter, Dean of York, and the Bishop of Durham were
absent from the election, and obtained a stay of confirmation from Richard I.
The king, having made Hubert Bishop of Salisbury, and sold the earldom
of Northumberland to Pudsey, evidently thought that he could proceed with
safety, and confirmed the election at Pipewell Abbey (16 September 1189)."
Geoffrey was about thirty years old, in deacon’s orders, with tastes which he
felt were unsuited to his dignity.” He received priest’s orders at Southwell
from the Bishop of Whithorn, disregarding the claim of the Archbishop of
Canterbury to ordain and consecrate him. His consecration, deferred by
quarrels with his chapter and the king, was performed by the Archbishop of
Tours (18 August 1191)." The disputes concerned the royal appointment of
Henry Marshal to the deanery of York, and of a kinsman of Pudsey to the
treasurership.

Geoffrey made peace with his opponents, and recovered his confiscated
temporalities, in December 1189.“ But on 5 January 1189—go, coming to
vespers in the minster, he found that the dean and treasurer had begun service
without him. The dean tried to continue the office ; but when Geoffrey began
it afresh the treasurer ordered the lights to be put out. The Epiphany
services were suspended ; and the citizens were hardly restrained from doing
violence to the offended dignitaries. Geoffrey went abroad in February, was
forbidden to return by the king, and hindered from obtaining consecration by
the opposition of the Pudseys, but nevertheless obtained the grant of the pall.
Meanwhile, in York, the Jews perished by massacre and mutual slaughter
during March; and a visit at Eastertide from the king’s chancellor,
William Longchamp, left the chapter under interdict.

After his consecration in 1191 Geoffrey came to England. He was
imprisoned in Dover Castle by Longchamp, and delivered by order of John.
He sat in the council which deprived Longchamp, and was enthroned at York
on 1 November. Hugh Pudsey was soon visited with excommunication ;
and Geoffrey did not scruple to excommunicate his deliverer John for holding
intercourse with the recalcitrant bishop. The nuns of Clementhorpe
appealed against his appropriation of their house to Godstow Abbey, where
his mother lay buried.” On the promotion of Marshal to the see of Exeter,
Geoffrey bestowed the deanery on his brother Peter; but Peter was abroad
and could not be installed.* To avoid accepting a royal nominee, Geoffrey
gave the office to one of his clerks, Simon of Apulia. Shortly after he

‘© Hoveden, op. cit. ii, 264-5.

“ The history of Geoffrey’s stormy pontificate until 1201 is given at some length by Hoveden, whose
account has been mainly followed here. For other authorities, see footnotes to his life in Dixon and Raine,
op. cit. 251 seq.

“ Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 256, quote Giraldus’s statement that Geoffrey declined at first the offer of
the archbishopric by the canons, on the ground of his sporting tastes.

“ Hoveden gives the date of the ordination as 29 Aug. This must be a mistake for 28 Sept., as the
Bishop of Whithorn had been consecrated only on 17 Sept. at Pipewell, by the Archbishop of Dublin.

** Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 261, from Giraldus Cambrensis.

* He bought them back with a promise of 3,000 marks for the Crusade. His inability to raise this sum
caused subsequent difficulty with Richard. Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 258 seq.

“© Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 263. *” Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 188.

“ Peter was Archdeacon of Lincoln.

* Simon became Bishop of Exeter in 1214, succeeding Marshal there as at York.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

asserted that this appointment was merely temporary, and tried to restore
Peter. The canons, however, elected Simon, and Geoffrey then gave the
dignity away to Philip Peytevin, Archdeacon of Canterbury. He thus bred
strife with the chapter ; and when he asked some of the canons to devote
a quarter of their incomes to the ransom of Richard I, he was refused.
Richard was grateful to him for his loyalty during John’s rebellion, and was
ready to mediate in the quarrel; but the canons had suspended service in the
minster, and Geoffrey, instead of going to Richard, stayed to finish out the
fight at York. He placed his clerks in the church, and was liberal in
excommunications : the citizens restored the canons. Four of the dignitaries
took their case to Rome, and obtained the provision of Simon to the
deanery. Unable to procure a final decree on their rights of presentation,
they accused Geoffrey before the pope of various crimes, including his love
of hunting and hawking, which some of them formerly had been willing to
overlook. The pope appointed a commission in June 1194. It met at
York in the following January, and assessed the damages claimed by the
canons at about 3,000 marks. Geoffrey was abroad, and time was allowed
him in which to make his appeal at Rome.”

In 1194 the old dispute about the cross arose with Hubert
Walter, now Archbishop of Canterbury. Hubert was at Nottingham
on Lady Day with his cross erect: Geoffrey, although he stayed
away from Richard’s coronation on 17 April, was allowed to have his cross
borne before him at Waltham, six days later, whereupon Hubert sent com-
missioners to York, who deprived Geoffrey of all his manors but Ripon.
At Michaelmas, when the dignitaries came back from Rome with a decree
in their favour, Pudsey was called in to remove the archbishop’s interdict
from the church.

Geoffrey now went abroad, and found Richard well disposed to his
claims. But in 1195 the king once more seized his temporalities.” In his
absence the commissioners published their report ; and on 11 June Hubert
Walter came to York as legate. The canons joined with Geoffrey’s officers
in refusing to acknowledge him as archbishop or primate. Hubert did not
press the point, but succeeded in promulgating a number of decrees at a synod,
and deposing the infirm abbot of St. Mary’s, who appealed to Rome. Some
months later, at Northallerton, he confirmed the election of Philip Peytevin
to the bishopric of Durham, left vacant by the death of Pudsey in March.®*

50 Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, gz seq. (17 May 1194). The dignitaries were Hamon, the precentor ;
Ralph, Archdeacon of York ; Geoffrey Muschamp, Archdeacon of Cleveland ; and William Testard, Arch-
deacon of Nottingham. From the letter of Celestine III to the commissioners (8 June 1195), ap. Hoveden
(op. cit. ili, 292-3), it appears that the abbots of St. Mary’s and Selby, and eleven Premonstratensian abbots,
laid information against Geoffrey, either in person or by deputy.

51 Hoveden gives two separate accounts of the commission and of Geoffrey’s appeal at Rome, an. 1194-5.
The sequence of events is made clear by a comparison of the dates in his account. Hugh of Lincoln, as we
should expect, behaved with great magnanimity on the commission, and refused to suspend Geoffrey until
he had had time to make his appeal. For the report of the commissioners and details of the damage, see
Hist, Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 99 seq.

5 Hoveden (Chron. [Rolls Ser.], iii, 287) says that Geoffrey’s arrogance was the cause of his deprivation.
Letters in his favour were issued by Richard from Mamers in Maine, 3 Nov. 1194, one of which requires
amends to him from the men of Beverley, and the other orders the deprivation of the Archdeacon of Cleve-
land and two of the canons.

3 Peytevin was elected at Durham, 4 Jan. 1195-6 (G. Coldingham, Hist. Dunelm. Scripiores Tres.
(Surt. Soc.], 17). Hoveden (op. cit. iii, 308) says that the confirmation at Northallerton took place on the
fifth day after Christmas, 1195.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

By Christmas 1195 Geoffrey reached the ebb of his fortunes. He failed
to appear at Rome, and was suspended. But in 1196, coming to Rome in
person, he procured the removal of the suspension. The king, however,
would not restore his temporalities. In 1198, Geoffrey was summoned to
meet the chapter in Normandy before the king. He arrived first, and was
quickly reconciled to his brother, who sent him on a mission to Rome.*
Shortly after, the canons arrived, and persuaded the king to resume the
temporalities. Richard, anxious to make peace, found Simon and the canons
as obstinate as Geoffrey.* Innocent III favoured Geoffrey, and when John
came to the throne he was at last able to return to England.” He entered
into a bond with the chapter to accept the decision of a new commission ;
and in 1200 he gave the kiss of peace to Dean Simon and two other
members of the chapter at Westminster.” Before the end of the year, he
quarrelled with John, and was once more deprived of his temporalities and
had to buy back his peace at York in Lent, 1201. The kiss of peace had
healed no disputes with the chapter. Nominations to the chantership, the
archdeaconries of York ® and Cleveland,” and the provostship of Beverley,"
were fruitful in strife. Honorius, Archdeacon of Richmond, who had been
the friend and nominee of Geoffrey, became his enemy ; and the last recorded
dispute of this pontificate arose from Geoffrey’s claim to the privileges of the
archdeacon. On this occasion he received a severe letter from Innocent III.”
Bickerings with John continued until 1207, when Geoffrey refused to levy a
thirteenth in his province, and left the kingdom.® He died abroad in 1212."

No more serious fault can be charged against Geoffrey than intractable
temper and wilfulness, which were met by equal obstinacy in his opponents.”

“ He did not go there, but apparently returned to argue with the chapter at Les Andelys. He appealed
personally to Innocent III in 1198.

% The chapter refused the three prelates appointed as judges by Richard, and demanded to te tried by a
commission of secular canons.

° Geoffrey did not return for the coronation of John; and he was with the king in Normandy after-
wards. Hubert Walter and the justiciary, Geoffrey Fitz Peter, entered a protest to the king against his return.

7 The commissioners present at this scene were the Bishop of Salisbury and the Abbot of Tewkesbury.

°° Geoffrey had excommunicated his unruly subjects at Beverley. John was at Beverley on 25 Jan. 1200-1,
and stayed, for a consideration, with John le Gros, one of the excommunicated. He came to York at
Mid-Lent.

*° The archdeaconry of York had been disputed in 1195. An agreement had been come to, by which
Geoffrey’s nominee was put in possession of the title and 60 marks annual pension, while his rival took actual
possession of the office as his deputy. In 1199, when Peter of Dinant had become Bishop of Rennes, Geoffrey
tried to introduce another nominee of his own, but was opposed by Adam of Thorner, who held that the office
and title were now in his sole occupation.

© The dispute as to the archdeaconry of Cleveland was mixed up with that relating to the vacant chanter-
sh'p in 1201. Geoffrey tried to instal Ralph of Kyme in the first office, and being unsuccessful, claimed the
chantership for him.

*! Geoffrey nominated his brother Morgan to the provostship. Morgan was one of the candidates elected
to the bishopric of Durham in the vacancy following Bishop Peytevin’s death. His election was quashed at
Rome (Coldingham, Hist. Dunelm. Scriptores Tres. [Surt. Soc.], 31 ; Graystanes, ibid. 35).

* Geoffrey gave the archdeaconry on this occasion to Roger of St. Edmunds, whose presentation to it by
the king had been a source of contention in 1196.

® Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 400, 401 ; Wendover (Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. [Rolls Ser.], ii,5 20).

“ Godwin, quoted by Dixon and Raine, op, cit. 278, is the only authority for the statement that
Geoffrey died at Grosmont in Normandy.

* The dying confession of Ralph of Wigtoft, one of his clerks, disclosed a plot to poison Dean Simon
(Hoveden, op. cit. iv, 15-16). Doubtless, Simon believed Geoffrey guilty of complicity ; but his connivance
was not mentioned or implied by the chief culprits. So much of Stubbs’ praise of the archbishops is conven-
tional that one cannot put much value on his character of Geoffrey (Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], ii, 100) as‘ vir...
magnae abstinentiae et summae puritatis’ ; but there is no evidence to the contrary apart from one or two
phrases in an abusive poem quoted, Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 278 n.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

His reluctance to accept the archbishopric, his intervention on behalf of
his enemies during the riot at York in 1189—g0, are pointsin his favour.
In 1201 he was at York to receive the missionary Abbot of Flay, whose
exhortations on the hallowing of the Lord’s Day had a profound effect in
Yorkshire.“ Documents are preserved in the registers of later archbishops,
which throw light on Geoffrey as a diocesan, Among these is an ordination
of a vicarage in Kirkby-in-Malhamdale Church, appropriated to the convent
of West Dereham. This, the first recorded ordination of a vicarage in the
diocese, is dated from Patrington, 5 July 1205.”

No election to the see was made till 1215, when the canons chose
Simon Langton, brother of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The election was
quashed by the pope, on appeal from John.* The chapter then elected the
king’s nominee, Walter Gray, Bishop of Worcester.” He received his pall
from Innocent III at Rome, where he had gone to the Lateran Council, and
to take part in the appeal against Langton’s election. Gray had been
Chancellor of England ; and during ‘his long pontificate his relations with .
the Crown were consistently friendly. He was employed in positions of high
trust, as in 1242, when he was regent of the kingdom during the king’s
absence in Gascony.” The dispute with Canterbury was less actively
pursued by him. MHonorius III forbade him, in 1218, to carry his cross in
the southern province.” In 1223, when the king ordered him to join in
receiving the King of Jerusalem in London, Gray, reflecting that this
appearance might lead to a quarrel with Stephen Langton, went out of his
way to his manor of Churchdown, and wrote for advice to the justiciar of
England.” Atthe synod of London (1237), Gray and Edmund Rich abode
by the legate’s decision that the Archbishop of Canterbury should sit on his
right hand, the Archbishop of York on his left.% Gray acted with similar
judgement towards his suffragans. Although, after the death of Bishop Marsh
(1226), he delayed the consecration of the nominee of the Prior and convent of
Durham,” he consecrated three Bishops of Durham and three of Carlisle, and
received written professions from at least one bishop of each see. Gilbert, whom
he consecrated to Whithorn in 1235, acted as his deputy at the dedication of
Yedingham Priory Church (1241) and of the chapel in Helmsley Castle.”

Gray is the first archbishop of whose register we possess any part.
From this we can gain a clear idea of his diocesan work. The chief abuse
with which he had to contend was the marriage of the secular clergy.
Sons of parochial clergy had even obtained several benefices without a
dispensation. Honorius III issued a bull at his request (1221) condemning

6 Some of the miraculous punishments of Sabbath breaking at Beverley, Nafferton, and Wakefield, are
noted by Hoveden, op. cit. iv, 170-1.

8 York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 255, 256. Whitaker, Richmondshire, i, 252, notices an institution
by Archdeacon Honorius in 1198 to the vicarage of Langton-on-Swale from the Coucher book of Easby Abbey.
No ordination is extant.

8° Wendover (Matt. Paris, Chron. May. [Rolls Ser.], ii, 628, 629).

* The date of his consecration to Worcester was § Oct. 1214. He was chancellor 1205-14.

See Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 284 seq. for a summary of Gray’s public charges.

" Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 113.

™ York Reg. Gray (Surt. Soc.), i, App. no. xxi, 145-6.

3 Matthew Paris, C4ron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 417.

™ The see was left vacant for two years and four months, until the translation of Poore trom Salisbury.

* York Reg. Gray (Surt. Soc.), gon. 119 n.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the custom of hereditary succession in the rectories of the diocese.”*
Married clergy and their sons, who had succeeded to their fathers’
livings, were to be deprived and replaced by suitable persons. Thus,
William, rector of Rowley, who had succeeded his father, was deprived
and received in compensation the tithes of a chapelry in the parish.”
Peter, rector of Weaverthorpe, appealed to the pope against the efforts
of Gray to eject him (1226). The pope ordered the archbishop to let
him stay there till another benefice should be forthcoming ;™ but Gray
deprived Peter about 1228.” Hereditary succession 1s not one of the
abuses mentioned by Alexander IV to Gray in 1255; clerical immorality
is censured, but no reference is made to marriage. Non-residence is
the subject of a letter from Gregory IX (1231), requiring personal
residence, or the appointment of a vicar. Persons holding several
benefices were to reside in one, and appoint vicars to the rest: in case
of neglect, the archbishop was to present, and, if necessary, institute
vicars." Alexander IV gave the Chapter of York permission to withhold
the prebendal incomes of non-resident canons.”

Instances of appointments of foreigners to benefices occur at Stanwick
(1226), Lastingham (1229), Adlingfleet (1234),° and Birkby (1238).™
John, known as Romanus, was Canon and Sub-dean of York, Archdeacon of
Richmond (1241-56), and afterwards Treasurer of York. His name is
connected with the building of the north transept and the central tower of
the minster ®?; and his son became archbishop. In 1220 Honorius III
decreed that, on the death of papal clerks provided to English benefices, the
right of presentation should revert to the original patrons.” This did not
check the abuse. In 1232 Robert Thweng revenged the collation of his
church of Kirkleatham to a foreign clerk without his consent by heading,
under the assumed name of William Wither, a band of marauders, who
sold the corn of the Roman clergy in England.” His case was taken to
Rome, and supported by the English barons, and in 1239 Gregory IX
revoked the collation, and ordered the institution of Thweng’s presentee.
It was ordained that henceforth no presentations to foreigners were to be

® York Reg. Gray (Surt. Soc.), App. no. xv (pp. 140-141) : also Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ili, 115.

7 Tbid. pt. i, no. Ixi, cxxili, cxxxvii (pp. 15, 26, 28).

*® Ibid. App. no. xxviii (p. 153).

* Ibid. pt. i, no. clvili (p.32). On 18 Sept. 1228, however, a Peter de Wiveretorp was instituted
to the church of Rowley (no. cxxiii, p. 26), which looks like strict obedience to the pope’s commands.

* Ibid. App. no. Ixxix (pp. 215, 216) : ‘pro manifesta concubinarum cohabitatione’ is the phrase
used. It does not necessarily imply that no marriage ceremony had been gone through.

" Tbid. App. no. xli (pp. 165, 166).

‘ " Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 173: ‘ his exceptis, qui nostris vel fratrum nostrorum immorantur
obsequiis.’

*Tbid. pt. i, no. xxxv (p. 9), ‘Master Lawrence, canon of Aquileia.’

“ Ibid. no. cxxxv (p. 28), ‘ Cozoni, scriptor of the pope’

® Thid. no. cclxxxix (p. 67), ‘Cinchinus Romanus, clericus.’

* Ibid. no. ccclix(p. 82), ‘Master Greg’ de Monte Longo, notary of the pope.’

* Stubbs, Hist. Cs. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 409.

* Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 113, 114. York Reg. Gray (Surt. Soc.), App. no. xii (pp. 137,
138 n).

* Roger Wendover (Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. [Rolls Ser.], iii, 217, 218). Thweng’s rising was appar-
ently part and parcel of a rising mentioned in the previous year, when Cincius, a Roman clerk, and canon
of St. Paul's, was seized by armed men between St. Albans and London. Cincius was probably the person
mentioned above, note 85. The pope made John Romanus one of the commissioners to inquire into the
rising in the north,

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

made without the consent of patrons.” Asan effect of this and subsequent
mandates, two appointments to livings in 1254 may be noted. St. Mary’s
Abbey presented Roger of Meulan to Stokesley, nominally held by Stephen
of Anagni, and Roger Heslerton to Rudston, which was said to be occupied
by ‘ Wyschardus transmontanus.’ *

Numerous ordinations of vicarages occur in Gray’s register and the
register of the dean and chapter.” Gray placed the dignities and prebends
of the church of York on a substantial footing. In 1218 he separated
the treasurership from the archdeaconry of the East Riding, and endowed
it with a portion of the prebend of Sherburn, dividing the remaining
portion into the prebends of Wistow and Fenton.” In 1221 he appropri-
ated the church of Hornby to the common fund of the chapter. This
church was granted to him by St. Mary’s Abbey, probably in return for
the appropriation to them of the rectories of Catterick, West Gilling,
Overton, and a mediety of Middleton Tyas. Kirkby Ouseburn, granted
to Gray by Fountains Abbey, was appropriated to the chantership ;° and
West Acklam, obtained from Thornton Abbey, was annexed to the
chancellorship.” On 1 May 1228 Gray made an arrangement with the
abbey of Aumale about its advowsons in Holderness. Six churches,
Preston, Mappleton, Withernwick, Burton Pidsea, Wawne, and Tunstall, he
reserved to his own use. In compensation he allowed the convent to
appropriate Aldbrough, Skeckling, and Kilnsea, restored to them the rectories
and vicarages of Paull, Owthorne, and Withernsea, granted them certain
tithes and pensions, and renewed a grant of the chapel of Birstall. He
annexed Preston to the newly created sub-deanery, to which he collated
John Romanus.” Burton Pidsea was appropriated in 1230 to the church
of York to provide stipends for the vicars ;° Mappleton was annexed to
the archdeaconry of the East Riding, Wawne to the chancellorship, Tunstall
to the sub-chantership, Withernwick to the prebend of Holme.’ In October
1240 Gray ordained vicarages in the three churches of the prebend of
Fenton, viz. Sherburn, Kirk Fenton, and St. Maurice in Monkgate.?
Similar ordinations were made in the churches of Wetwang, Fridaythorpe,
and Kirkby Wharfe, annexed to the prebend of Wetwang.® In 1242 the

% Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 612-14.

| York Reg. Gray (Surt. Soc.), pt. i, no. dli, dlv (pp. 119, 120). Roger of Meulan is probably the
bishop of that name who was consecrated to the see of Chester, Coventry, and Lichfield, 10 Mar. 1257-8.

1 Gray’s provisions for the ornaments of churches in his diocese should be noticed (ibid. App. no.
Ixxxi (1), pp. 217 seq.). The parishioners were to supply chalice, missal, the principal set of vestments for
celebrant, deacon, and sub-deacon, copes for use on festivals by the celebrant and the rulers of the quire, a
processional cross, ‘alia crux minor pro mortuis,’ holy-water stoup, pax, paschal candlestick, censer, ‘lucerna
cum tintinnabulo,’ lenten veil, candlesticks for processional use, the church books, a frontal for the high altar,
three surplices, a pyx, a banner ‘ pro rogationibus,’ the bells with their ropes, the font ‘cum serura,’ chris-
matory, images in the church, an image of the patron-saint in the chancel. They were charged with the
repair of all the above, the lighting of the church, the repair of the nave, the glazing of windows in nave and
tower, the inclosure of the churchyard, &c. The rectors or vicars were held responsible for the repair of
the chancel, with its roof and windows, desks and foot-stools, &c., with the repair of the rectory, &c.

8 Ibid. App. no. viii (pp. 132, 133). Ibid. App. no. xiv (pp. 139, 140).

* Ibid. App. no. xi (pp. 136, 137: Sept. 1220). * Ibid. App. no. xvi (pp. 141, 142).

Ibid. App. no. xviii (pp. 143, 144).

8 Ibid. pt. i, no. cviii (pp. 22, 23).

* Tbid. pt. i, no. cxxvi (pp. 26, 27). Thid. pt. i, no. ccxvi (p. 48).

1 Tbid. pt. i, no. ccxx (pp. 52, 53).

? Ibid. App. no. lvii (p. 185 seq.) F

5 Ibid. App. no. lviii (pp. 189, 190). This stall was held at the time by the Archdeacon of York.

3 25 4

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

prebend of Wilton was annexed to thetreasurership.* In 1 252 vicarages were
>rdained in the churches of the Dean of York, Pocklington, Pickering, and Kil-
ham. The eight chapels of Pocklington were formed into four vicarages, the
four chapels of Pickering into two.’ This was done at the request of
Sewall de Bovill, then dean; and as Sewall held the prebend of Fen-
ton in 1240° he may have quickened Gray’s zeal for vicarages, which was
less noticeable in the case of the Holderness churches. Doubtless the
decrees of the synod of 1237 had their influence.’ An arrangement with
Nostell Priory in 1248 was the foundation of the prebend of Weaverthorpe,
while Nostell impropriated in compensation the churches of Tickhill, South
Kirkby, and Rothwell. In March 1252 Gray ordained vicarages in Batley,
Warmfield, and Feliskirk, also churches appropriated to Nostell.’ Ordinations
of South Kirkby and Rothwell occur in 1253," of Skeckling in 1253," of
Mappleton in 1254, and, also in 1254, of the prebendal church of Market
Weighton, whose advowson Gray had recovered from the monks of
Durham.” The vicarage of Conisbrough was ordained in 1252, the rector
belonging to Lewes Priory.’* A doubt as to the status of Braithwell Church
was examined (1247) by the ruridecanal chapter of Doncaster ; the church
was declared a chapel of Conisbrough, and a vicarage ordained therein."
Rectories divided into medieties were sometimes consolidated. Godfrey of
Ludham was collated in 1228 to a mediety of Penistone: in 1233 the other
mediety was conferred on him, and a rival presentee quieted by a pension."
The medieties of Beeford were united in 1249, and right of alternate presen-
tation granted to the patrons.” Whitby Abbey claimed (1253) a mediety of
Hutton Bushell ; the rector of the other mediety urged consolidation. Gray
decided in favour of Whitby, and ordained that after the death of the litigant
rector the other rector should enjoy both medieties, and the convent should
have the next right of presentation to the united benefice.”

The relations of Gray with the monasteries of his diocese were friendly.
His system of dealing with monastic advowsons, exemplified above, was to
the advantage of regulars and seculars alike. St. Mary’s Abbey, however,
claimed exemption from visitation more than once ; and Honorius III had to
issue several mandates enjoining obedience on the monks. Some years
later, St. Mary’s and Selby Abbeys fell into disgrace by pleading the clauses
of worthless charters against opponents of greater subtlety. In 1242 Gray
as regent tried to wring the purchase of a year’s wool from the Cistercian
abbots. They pleaded that they could do nothing without the assent of the

* York Reg. Gray (Surt. Soc.), App. no. Ixiv (p. 198). 5 Ibid. App. no. Ixxvi (p. 211 seq.).

® Ibid. App. no. lvii (see note 2 above). 7 See Matt. Paris, Cron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 428-9.

* York Reg. Gray (Surt. Soc.), App. no. lxx, Ixxi (p. 205 seq.). By the same arrangement a mediety of
Mexborough was annexed to the archdeaconry of York.

* Ibid. pt. i, no. dxxii—dxxiv (p. 112). © Thid. no. dxxxvi, dxxxix (pp. 115, 117).

1 Tbid. no, dxxxv (pp. 114, 115). 2

7 Tbid. no. dxlix, dxlviii (pp. 118, 119). For the prebend of Weighton see also no. ccxvi, ccxvil.
The Prior of Finchale seems to have been the actual impropriator of Weighton, Finchale being a cell of Durham
(see no. clxxil, pp. 35, 36).

8 Thid. no. dxxvili (p. 113). 4 Thid. no. cccclv (pp. 100, 101).

% Tbid. no. cxxii (p. 26) : for the other mediety see no. xcili (p. 20).

8 Tbid. no. dxxxvii (p. 115 seq.), 9 Tbid. App. no. xxvii (p. 152) and note.

Matt. Paris, op. cit. v, 362-3. St. Mary’s had pleaded forged privileges already in its resistance to the
archbishop ; see letter of Honorius III, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ili, 131, 132.
26

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

general chapter; which they were forbidden to attend in consequence.
The secular foundations of the diocese flourished under Gray.* For Ripon
he secured the church of Stanwick, by composition with the canons of
Easby,* and in 1241 he gave the chapter the church of Nidd.* When he
travelled he was allowed by Honorius III to have the four dignitaries of the
church of York in attendance, when necessary, and thus he was able to
keep in touch with diocesan business.* He conveyed the manor of Bishop-
thorpe in trust to the chapter of York.

The works of the transept of York,” the quires of Beverley * and
Southwell,” and the west front of Ripon,” were furthered by him ; while the
older portions of Bishopthorpe and the chapel of the palace at York® belong
to his rule. In 1224 he translated the body of St. Wilfrid to a new shrine
at Ripon; in 1226, he procured the canonization of St. William, whose
shrine at York henceforward became a centre of devotion.®

Gray died 1 May 1255 at Fulham.* MHenry III seized the opportunity
of appropriating the revenues of the archbishopric. The chapter elected
their dean, Sewall de Bovill, the friend and disciple of Edmund Rich ; but
Henry objected to Sewall’s illegitimate birth.* Sewall was eventually
consecrated * ; but his short pontificate was a heart-breaking struggle with
the foreigners who were intruded into the benefices of the diocese. A
foreigner, armed with a papal provision, came into York Minster one day
at an hour when no one was about, and was installed dean by two companions.
Sewall was interdicted for resisting the intrusion, and had to buy off the
intruder with an annual pension.” Further resistance to papal demands led
to his excommunication.* On his death bed (1258) he addressed a letter

71 Matt. Paris, op. cit. iv, 234-5.

= Among his benefactions to York should also be mentioned the appropriation of Knaresborough Church
to the prebend of Bickhill (York Reg. Gray, no. ccxviii, §1) in 1230, and Thockrington Church, North-
umberland, to the stall held by Master Laurence of St. Nicholas (ibid. App. no. xxii (4), p. 148) in 1222.
See also App. no. xxx (p. 154 seq.).

3 Ibid. pt. i, no. cxix (p. 24 seq.) 5 ccxix (pp. 51, 52); ccxl (p. $7).

* Thid. no. ccccv (p. 91).

% Tbid. App. no. xxxii (p. 157 seq.) ; also Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 136, 137.

a lbid. pt. i, no. xl (p. 10), App. no. Ix (pp. 190, 191) ; also Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 135, 136,
153 seq. The date of the first document is 18 July 12263 of the second document that mentioned in the
preceding note. See also Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 402.

8 York Reg. Gray (Surt. Soc.), pt. i, no. ccxxxv (pp. 55, 56): 16 July 1232.

*Tbid. no. cclxxvii (pp. 64,65): 23 Nov. 1233.

3° Ibid. no. cclxxviii (p. 65) : 27 Nov. 1233.

31 Now the chapter library.

3 York Reg. Gray. (Surt. Soc.), App. no. xxiii. The translation took place on Christmas Day. See note
60, 61 above (p. 7); also Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 124, 125.

3 See Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 127 seq.; 133, 134 3 138 seq.

* Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), pp. 495, 496. Stories of Gray’s avarice are told by Wendover,
ibid. iii, 299, 300.

35 Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Roils Ser.), v, 516. Romanus the elder died in 1256; the king seized on
his prebend and other possessions.

%8 He was consecrated at York by his suffragans, 23 July 1256 (Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], ii, 404).
See Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 174, 175, for a document (York Reg. Giffard [Surt. Soc. cix], 251), by which
the chapter, on 1 Oct. 1255, bound themselves to pay 200 marks to the subchanter for his prosecution of
the candidature of Sewall at Rome, and pledged the church of South Burton, and the manor and church of
Brotherton, as security for payment.

3” Matt. Paris, op. cit. v, 586, 624. The foreign intruder was Cardinal Giordano Orsini (d. 1287) : he
was probably represented by a proxy at the fraudulent installation.

% Ibid. op. cit. v, 653.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

to Alexander IV, deprecating the partiality which had been shown to his
opponents.” About a week before his death he ordained vicarages in the
prebendal churches of the chapel of St. Sepulchre. Six of these, Thorp
Arch, Collingham, Bardsey, Otley, Calverley, and Hooton Pagnell, were in
Yorkshire ; the rest were in the deanery of Retford in Nottinghamshire.®
Godfrey of Ludham (1258-64) also left the deanery for the arch-
bishopric. He was consecrated at Rome," and on his way home passed
through London with his cross erect.” In 1260 the citizens of York
incurred excommunication for hanging a woman who was a tenant of the
chapter, in face of an inhibition. Godfrey also found the men of Beverley
a thorn in his side, and excommunicated them for breaking his parks.“ The
registers of Sewall and Ludham unfortunately no longer exist. With Walter
Giffard, translated by papal provision from Wells (1 265) after the abortive
election by the chapter of their dean John Langton, the registers again
begin.* Giffard continued the dispute with Canterbury, appealing to the curia
on the subject of the use of the cross, and sending his proctor to Boniface
of Savoy with a formal notice of appeal.“* His chief anxiety was caused
by the constant exactions of the Holy See, as he was often short of money, and
was forced to borrow at heavy interest from Italian money-lenders.” In
1270 he writes to excuse himself from coming to Rome, pleading the
troubled state of the kingdom, and his duty of staying at home and making
peace. He cannot remain in his own diocese: his debts are heavy, and he
has to meet a debt of £3,000 which Ludham had contracted. ‘Iam worn
out with work ; I am continually weary; I am obliged to consume the
whole of my substance, not only my spiritual but my temporal inheritance ;
and I have been so harassed by overwhelming vexations ever since my
appointment, that now I may scarcely hope for power to breathe.’ Giffard
was hardly able to afford the sums which he sent to Rome for the cardinals
whose help he needed. = When Cardinal Ottobon asked him to confer a
prebend on one of his clerks, Giffard answered that he could barely provide
for his own clerks and had nothing to give. | Ancherus, cardinal-deacon of
Santa Prassede, claiming a prebend at York, was pacified only by an annual

°° Matt. Paris, op. cit. 692-3. ” Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 175 seq.

" Stubbs (Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], ii, 405) gives the date of his consecration as 23 Sept. 1258, but gives
the name of his consecrator wrongly as Urban IV (not Alexander). 22 Sept. is the right date. (Dixon and
Raine, op. cit. 300.)

“ Matt. Paris, op. cit. v, 725.

“ See mandate from Alexander IV, dated Anagni, 23 Dec. 1260 (Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], iii, 183 seq.).
Stubbs says that Ludham laid the city under interdict from Ash Wednesday to 3 May, in his third year, which,
reckoning from his consecration, would be 1261. The date and contents of the papal letter show that the
interdict was probably pronounced by the Bishop of Lincoln as commissioner in 1261.
re z York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 151. This excommunication was confirmed by Archbishop |
iffard. .

*° Giffard’s register has been printed by Mr. William Brown for the Surtees Society, 1904. Mr. Brown
kindly allowed the present writer to make use of the proofs of his edition (since published) of Wickwane’s, and
of his transcript of Romanus’ registers.

“ York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 140 seq.

See e.g. ibid. 110, 115, where ‘payments of money to Florentine, Sienese, and Lucchese merchants are
noted.

‘s Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 35, 36. The letter is dated 25 March 1270, from Hampton Episcopi (now
Hampton Lucy), a manor of his brother, the Bishop of Worcester, near Stratford-on-Avon.

® See the letter, e.g. written from London, 31 July 1272, to the cardinal of Sta Prassede (Lest. N. Reg.

[Rolls Ser.], PP. 44, 45).
* York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 245.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

pension.” Pierre de Charny held the prebend of Fenton”; Percival of
Lavagna, brother of Ottobon, was sacrist of St. Sepulchre’s.®

A commission appointed in 1275 was authorized to inquire into several
details bearing on the state of the diocese. First comes the question
of plurality. The commissioners were asked iter alia to report upon pen-
sions paid from churches, appropriated churches, to require accounts
from guardians of churches and commendatories, to find out absentee
clergy or clergy with licences to reside elsewhere for study; to ex-
amine the behaviour of religious; to return names with details of
irregular and excommunicate clergy, clergy with paramours, clergy ordained
outside the diocese, superfluous private oratories, illegitimate clergy or heads
of monasteries; to report on the conduct of archdeacons; on farmers of
churches, vicarages in appropriated churches, alienated church property,
incorrigible clerks and lay-folk, clergy guilty of fornication and simony,
perjurers, neglect of canonical hours, and rectors and vicars not in full orders.
Instances of plurality were not far to seek. Cases like that of Giffard’s proctor
at Rome, who held the church of Heslerton with another in Lincoln
diocese, were probably unavoidable ; but there were flagrant examples such
as that of Bogo de Clare, who obstinately contended for institution to
Adlingfleet,** or William Percy, who, without taking holy orders or obtaining
a dispensation, was rector of several churches, wasting their revenues, neglect-
ing the fabrics, and grieving his diocesan’s conscience.” Many beneficed
clerks remained in minor orders, or delayed submitting to be ordained even
when they held vicarages.* In an ordination list for Michaelmas 1268, the
vicar of Rotherham is a candidate for deacon’s orders. At Easter 1269,
the vicars of Helmsley and South Kirkby are among the deacons, and the
vicar of Warmfield is among the sub-deacons.° The synod of 1237 had
made priesthood obligatory on vicars of more than a year’s standing :®
Giffard enforced its decree on the obstinate vicar of Carnaby.” The chapter
of Craven reported (1268) that the rector of a mediety of Linton was
said to be married. The rector of West Rounton, probably a layman, was
found to have been married publicly at Goldsborough.™ Giffard ordained
vicarages in the East Riding churches which belonged to Bardney Abbey,”

5 York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 170, 171, 224, 225. Urban IV granted the prebend of Warthill
to Ancherus. Ottobon asked Giffard to confer it on the precentor of Chartres. Ancherus was willing to
resign it, but claimed the prebend of Newbald instead, which was actually held by the chancellor, William
Wickwane.

5 Ibid. 26, 133, 134. When Charny became Archbishop of Sens, the prebend was given to Pierre
de Montbrun. He became Archbishop of Narbonne in 1273, and it was then bestowed upon an Orsini.

3 bid. 148, 149. 54 Ibid. 266 seq. ® Tbid. 8.

58 A letter to the archbishop from Orvieto (ibid. 9 seq.) gives details of the progress of this dispute at the |
Curia.

5 Ibid. 265. Sir William Percy appears in various passages of the register as rector of Catton (ibid. 52)
and Seamer in Pickering Lythe (ibid. 57). He wasalso rector of Nafferton (Ca/. Pat. 1292-1301, p. 123).
In the letter from Orvieto mentioned above (note 56), Adam of Filleby is said to have thirty benefices ‘ absque
dispensacione, defectum etatis habens, ordinis, et sciencie ; quod absurdum fuerat cuilibet audienti.’

5° The continuance of this irregularity forms the burden of notices of ordination given by subsequent
archbishops.

° York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 193-4. ® Ibid. 193.

‘1 Matt. Paris, op. cit. ili, 426.

® York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 209, 210.

® Thid. 26. * Tbid. 290.

® Ibid. 55 seq. These vicarages were Hunmanby, Reighton, Argam, Burton Fleming, Wold Newton,
and Muston.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

and made an arrangement with Warter Priory by which the canons
impropriated Lund, while surrendering three advowsons." The church of
Bishopthorpe was appropriated to Clementhorpe Priory and a vicarage
ordained ; and a commission was issued to tax vicarages in the churches of
Pontefract Priory.” The medieties of Mexborough were consolidated, and
annexed to the archdeaconry of York.” Medieties of churches were
common: Rotherham, St. Mary Bishophill senior, and St. Mary Castlegate
in York, were churches thus divided.” Some cases of riotous clerks and lay-
folk occur in Giffard’s register. John of Stonegrave attempted to occupy
Stonegrave Church by force, while under excommunication.” Some
‘satellites of Satan’ broke into the house of a canon of Ripon at Forcett ;#
and ina long list of crucesignati occur several names of persons guilty of
assaults on clergy.”

Giffard favoured the friars of his diocese. ‘The Friars Minors and
Preachers he writes, shine in the church of God like the brightness of the
firmament.” They have been raised in the latter days like Enoch and Elias be-
fore the last judgement : they are two olive-trees of perpetual greenness.” He
ordained Dominicans from Pontefract and Tickhill, Franciscans from Bever-
ley, Carmelites and Friars of the Sack from York.” In 1275 Giffard ordered
his receiver to provide for the entertainment of the Dominican provincial
chapter at York.” He granted a licence to Franciscans to hear confessions
throughout the diocese (1267) ;% and ordered (1276) the Cistercian nunneries
to continue to confess to the friars, in spite of an inhibition from the abbots
of their order.” The friars, however, received confessions indiscriminately,
as at Beverley, and absolved contumacious persons who were refused absolu-
tion by their parish priests. They were forbidden to receive penitents from
the parishes of St. Mary and St. Martin without the vicar’s licence.”

This isnot the place to discuss the monasteries; but it may be noted
that Giffard’s visitations of Selby Abbey ® and Swine Priory ® show that
the state of some religious houses called for thorough reform. Parochial
disputes were in many cases referred for settlement to ruridecanal chapters.
The chapter of Doncaster inquired at Darfield (21 November 1267) into the

“ York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 50-1. The advowsons in question were those of Wheldrake,
Nunburnholme, and Thorpe Chapel.

“Ibid. 59, 60. The vicar is to have all the fruits of the altarage, and two marks yearly from
the chamber of the nuns; ‘et qualibet die Dominica unam refeccionem in domo vestra, qualem ceteris
familiaribus honestis vestris ex consuetudine erogatis, qua si contentus absque murmure nolit esse, careat ipsa
quousque quae apud vos sunt placide receperit et gratanter.? The vicar is to repair the chancel ; but if a new

one is built, the nuns are to join with him in repaying expenses. An assignation of vicarage and
garden follows.

* Ibid. 251; Kippax, Silkstone, and Todwick. *® Ibid. 200, 201.

Ibid. 22, 23, 24, 31. " Tbid. 161, 162.

7 Tbid. 180.

® This list begins fol. 122 d. and is continued on fol. 129, 129d., 130, 130d., 134, 134d., 135d., 140d.
It is printed continuously by Brown, York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 278 seq. and in Lest. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.),
46 seq. Henry of Rillington has attacked the parish priest of Rillington ; William of Driffield has laid
hands on two clerks, Simon Orre and Robert of Langtoft. Another fault mentioned was irregularitas, i.e.
ordination by a prelate other than the candidate’s own diocesan.

™ York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 295.

. ai N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 9, 10. 7 York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 189 seq.
id. 271. * See note 75 above.
See note 74 above. © York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 226, 227.

" Ibid. 324 seq. : 8 Aug. 1275. See also the following section on the ‘ Religious Houses.’
© York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 146 seq. ; see also ibid. 248, 249.

1279)

Wa crer Girrarp (1266

1255)

Watter Gray (1215

"THORESBY

Ss.

THOMA

315)

-1

FIELD (1306

Wititam GREEN

Prare |

York ARCHIEPISCOPAL SEALS

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

tight of presentation to a mediety of High Hoyland,® and at Doncaster
(11 April 1268) settled the right of presentation to Badsworth. At
Doncaster (14 May 1268) a similar inquiry was made about Barnby-on-
Don ;* and at Hooton Pagnell (28 November 1268) a disputed vacancy at
South Kirkby was examined.”

Giffard died 25 April1279." Thechapter met 22 June, and elected their
chancellor, William Wickwane. The election wasdeclared invalidand quashed
by Nicholas III, who provided Wickwane to the see, and consecrated him
at Viterbo (19September).* Thenewarchbishop travelled homewards through
Kent with his cross erect. At Rochester it was broken by order of the
official of Archbishop Peckham ; and a second riot took place in London.”
In his appeals against the claims of Canterbury and Durham, Wickwane
approached the curia with excessive humility, reminding one cardinal of the
zeal with which he had arranged the farming-out of a prebend belonging
to Napoleone Orsini,” and congratulating Martin IV on his election with
exaggerated suavity.” If Wickwane swelled the flood of foreign preferment
to English benefices, he was earnest in his diocesan duties. Almost his
whole episcopate was spent in his diocese.” He made several visitations
of monasteries: during May and June 1280 he visited seven houses
of regular canons in the archdeaconries of York and Nottingham.* From
April to June 1281 he travelled through the archdeaconry of Richmond,
visiting religious houses and the chapters of the various deaneries.* — Passing
through Amounderness, Copeland, Kendal, and Lonsdale, he came to
Coverham on 1 June, and thence went through the deaneries of Catterick
and Richmond into Cleveland.* On his way to Hexham, he made a
disastrous attempt, in face of strong resistance, to visit the church of
Durham.* He was more successful in a dispute over right of common
pasture with the men of Beverley, whose ringleaders interrupted his sermon in
the minster.” He laid the town under an interdict ; and forced the chief
offenders to make public penance.” Other offenders were the intruding

8 York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 21. * Ibid. 25. % Tbid. 27.

% Tbid. 28. *” Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 406.

8 York Reg. Wickwane (Surt. Soc. cxiv), 305 ; Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 407.

® York Reg. Wickwane (Surt. Soc. cxiv), 178-83. | Wickwane’s letter to the pope is printed in Legs.
N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 60 seq.; see also ibid. 59, 60.

%° York Reg. Wickwane (Surt. Soc. cxiv), 180. Napoleone, ‘stirpis masculine memoriale magnificum et
tocius parentele predilectum flosculum,’ remained for many years an incubus on the church of York.

* Ibid. 191, 192.

* Evidence of dated documents in York Reg. Wickwane (Surt. Soc. cxiv). See chronological itinerary, ibid.

43-8. % Ibid. 130-48.

“Tbid.116-19. Writing from Clapham in Lonsdale on 4 April, he demands full detailsas to churches, chapels,
and vicarages in the western deaneries of the archdeaconry, the names of the clergy, their orders and the time and
place of their ordination, holders of pluralities, names of non-residents and of those who have delayed to take
priest’s orders, patrons of churches, holders of pensions, vicarages which have ceased to be served, appropriated
churches, churches to be dedicated or reconciled, and cases of intruders into churches. With the last article
but one we may couple the statement of Stubbs (Hist. C4. York [Rolls Ser.], ii, 408), that Wickwane ‘ maximam
partem ecclesiarum suae diocesis . . . suo tempore dedicavit.’

* See note gz above.

” Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 66, 67.

* There are many documents relating to this case in the register. ‘The most important are the notice
of interdict which followed an appeal from the offenders to Canterbury (6 Aug. 1281, York Reg. Wickwane
[Surt. Soc. cxiv], 109, 110), and the directions to the deans of Beverley and of the Christianity of York for the
reconciliation of the penitents (2 Nov. 1281, ibid. 14, 15, 40, 41).

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

presentee and his supporters, who in 1280 seized Ferriby Church and made
it a centre for their depredations ;” and the monks of Pontefract, whom
Wickwane excommunicated for holding the church of Silkstone with an
armed force against his nominee!” In 1284 Silkstone Church was
appropriated to the priory, and a vicarage ordained, the collation to which
was reserved to the archbishop... Among instances of casual lawlessness are
a case of bloodshed in the church of Ainderby Steeple* and an affray between
two men at the door of Paull Church.2 Robert Berley incurred a whipping
from the pope’s penitentiary for beheading certain clerks*; a priest named
Robert Carnaby cut off the ear of another priest and laid violent hands on
other clerks,* and there are one or two cases of clerical immorality.®

Wickwane did his best to check the exactions of his officers. The clergy
of Holderness complained to him of the unnecessary pomp with which his
official and their dean came to hold chapters.” In May 1281, writing to his
official, who had requested him to appoint a common serjeant, he inclosed
some such complaints, with words of reproof, declining to multiply such
offices to the impoverishment of the clergy, and ordering the rural deans to
perform the duties of apparitors and sequestrators.'* His directions for an
ordination at Blyth show his anxiety at the reluctance of the beneficed clergy
to take priest’s orders.” In 1284 he censured the misbehaviour of certain
clerks attending the theological school.” He issued a commission on
plurality, and summoned pluralists to appear before him.” | He endeavoured
to promote the preaching of the friars, and warned the Cistercian proctors
in Scarborough Church against opposing the Franciscans in their sacred
mission.”

At the translation of St. William, which took place in York Minster on
g January 1283-4," Edward I and his queen were present, and on the same
day Wickwane consecrated Anthony Bek, who had done much to procure the
translation, Bishop of Durham.* Towards the end of 1284 the archbishop
went abroad, and died at Pontigny on 26 August 1285. His zeal and piety
gained him the reputation of a saint,** and while he lacked the geniality of
Giffard, the practical side of his character may be noted in his arrangements
for stocking the farms on his various lordships.*”

The diocesan energy of Wickwane was continued under his successor,
John le Romeyn, better known as Romanus, a son of the celebrated treasurer.

* A large number of documents refer to this case, especially York Reg. Wickwane (Surt. Soc. cxiv), 98-
105. Wickwane visited Ferriby himself, and found that the intruding rector, Richard Vescy, and his accomplices
had turned the church into acastle. A mandate of sequestration was issued on 13 Nov.; ibid. 105, 106.

1 Ibid. 213, 214, 273, 274. Ibid. 292-4.

* Ibid. 28. The Bishop of Moray was commissioned to reconcile the church, 15 Nov. 1283.

* Ibid. gt, 92. * Ibid. 37, 38. 5 Ibid. 85, 86.

* Ibid. 93. This is the worst example. “7 Ibid. 248, 249. * [bid. 214, 215.
Thid. 219. Cf. go. ® Ibid. 308. ” Thid. 95, 96.

” Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 79.

* Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 407 ; York Reg. Wickwane (Surt. Soc. cxiv), 294 ; Hist. Ch. York
(Rolls Ser.), ili, 210, 211 ; Lest. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 80, 81.

* Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 407, 408; Graystanes, Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres. (Surt.Soc.), 64,
says that, immediately after consecrating Bek, Wickwane tried to make him excommunicate the Prior of
Durham. Bek very properly refused.

** Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 408.

* Stubbs (ibid. 407) calls him St. William Wickwane. Fuller (C4. Hist. bk. iii, §vi, par. 14) says that
he was ‘esteemed a petty saint in that age.’

” Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 210 seq.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

He was consecrated at Rome in 1285-6 ;* and his journey home was the
subject of the usual inhibitions from his fellow archbishop.” His relations
with Durham were at first friendly ; and Bishop Bek brought about an
agreement by which the archbishop was recognized as exercising jurisdiction
during a vacancy of the see. However, in 1292 Romanus ordered his
‘ vicar-general to excommunicate Bek for disregarding his mandates and
imprisoning his clerks“; but Edward I, who valued Bek’s services in the
Scottish disputes, upheld his actions and fined Romanus 4,000 marks for
acting ultra vires.’ At York, Romanus had to contend with opposition
from the dean and chapter over the matter of visitation. A compromise
conceded to the archbishop the right of visitation once in five years, but
under conditions that limited his power of correction. In October 1293
he presented a rector to the church of Adel, alleging the inability of the
excommunicated priory of Holy Trinity to present ;* and in the following
January he laid the prior under the greater excommunication for contumacy.*

Most creditable to Romanus, considering his own origin, was his
opposition to the attempt made by Cardinal Matteo Rubeo Orsini to annex
the prebend of Fenton to his hospital in Rome.** He brought to an end the
dispute over Bogo de Clare’s claim to the church of Adlingfleet.*”7 Pluralism
was impossible to check. Apart from the intrusion of foreign nominees,”
native dignitaries held several benefices together. Thus John Clarell, canon
of Southwell, and provost of the chapel in Tickhill Castle, held fourteen
churches in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.® John of Craucumbe, Arch-
deacon of the East Riding, held churches in addition to those appropriated to
his office and stall.° Bogo de Clare, beneficed in many dioceses, was rector
of Tickhill, Settrington, Hemingbrough, Acaster Malbis, and a mediety ot
Doncaster.** As Treasurer of York, Bogo left the vestments unrepaired, the
censers broken ; the bells were ill-hung, and the clock was out of order.
The deputy-treasurer used the best silken altar cushions for his bed. His
people did not guard the church properly at night, and a quarrel among
them, one Easter eve, had led to a riot in the city. Dean Newark ordered
Bogo to set these things right, or they would be revealed to the king.*

After the assessment of livings in the diocese, made in September 1293,
Romanus states that several clergy complained that their benefices were taxed
beyond their true value. In 1292 he allowed Bolton Priory to appropriate

8 Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 408, 409. The date was 10 Feb.

® Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 82 seq.

5! Lett, N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 97 seq.

* Cal. Close, 1288-96, pp. 330-4. Thestory of the imprisonment of the archbishop (Dixon and Raine,
op. cit. 346) is not borne out by the internal evidence of his register, and may be doubted.

3 21 Nov. 1290; Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 216 seq.

* York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 44. % Ibid. fol. 45.

* Thid. fol. 104, 109, 109 d. : ‘altare nudatur Ebor. ecclesie et circumamictitur Sancti Spiritus hospitale
(fol. 109).

7 Tid. fol. 34, 34.d., 36. 8 Ibid. fol. gi1—109 d.

® Cal. Pat. 1292-1301, p. 120, See also Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 324, 325 n.

Cal. Pat. 1292-1301, p. 213. On the dorse of Bishop Sutton’s Institution Rolls for Lincoln Arch-
deaconry, m. 18, is a memorandum of a dispensation from Honorius IV to John of Craucumbe, allowiag
him to hold the living of Burton-on-Trent (Burton Joyce, Notts.) and another with his archdeaconry.

“ Tbid. ; York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 103 d.

” York Reg. Wickwane (Surt. Soc. cxiv), 286.

3 33 5

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the chapel of Carlton-in-Craven ; the floods of Wharfe anda murrain had
seriously depreciated their property, and the subsidy of the tenth, for the
relief of the Holy Land, had brought them still lower.” The number of
churches appropriated to religious houses in Yorkshire at the time of the
taxation of Nicholas IV is difficult to estimate with accuracy, but about eighty
instances can be gathered from Romanus’ register.” Romanus confirmed
the appropriation of the church of Tadcaster to Sawley Abbey (1290), of
Cantley to Wallingwells Priory (1289), of Harswell to Selby Abbey
(1294), and of Lund to Warter Priory (1290). He appointed the friars
to preach the Crusade throughout the diocese on Holy Cross Day 1291,” but
he refused to accept the theory which substituted their ministrations for
those of the parish priest, and his written judgement on the subject enforced
confession once a year to the latter.”

Difficulties with the chapter notwithstanding, Romanus was zealous for
the church of York. He attempted to curb non-residence, especially among
the clergy who served St. Sepulchre’s.” He annexed the church of Brayton
for a time to the archdeaconry of York.’ On 6 April 1291 he laid the
foundation stone of the nave of the minster, at its north-eastern corner.”
In the later years of his life he quarrelled with the chapter of Beverley,
appropriating the vacant provostship, and expelling the guardians appointed
by the canons. His death took place at Bishop Burton 11 March 1295-6."
During his pontificate took place the expulsion of the Jews from England.
Romanus wrote to his official and the dean of the Christianity of York,
forbidding any injury to the York Jews between the order for expulsion
and their departure.”

Henry of Newark, Dean of York, succeeded Romanus. He was con-
secrated at home by Bishop Bek, a favour obtained by request of the king.*
The formalities and payments required by the Curia were expensive enough
without a special journey to Rome, and Newark, in a letter to one of the
cardinals, begs some delay in paying the customary servitia. The Scots, by
laying waste his manor of Hexham, had deprived him for the present of half
his temporal revenue.” His proctor at Rome was slow in doing business,
and was severely blamed by Newark for his remissness.° Newark’s con-

“York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 41, 41d. The mother church at Skipton had been appropriated
to Bolton Priory by Turstin.

*° See especially fol. 27 d., 87, where various religious houses are summoned to give reason for thirty-one
impropriations ; fol. 54 d., a mandate to abstain from proceedings against Newburgh Priory for failing to have
vicars in their churches (cf. fol. §7 d., licence to Newburgh to let the churches of Thirsk and Kirkdale) ;
fol. 63 d., obedience of the Abbot of Thornton for Humbleton, North Frodingham, and Garton.

‘8 Tbid. fol. 36 (commission to tax vicarage).

‘7 Ibid. fol. 33 d., 34 (ordination of vicarage).

8 Ibid. fol. 40 d., 66, 66d. The chapels of Hambleton and Gateforth were also appropriated (40 d.).

*° Tbid. fol. 61, 63. © Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 93 seq.

51 Lett, N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 102, 103.

3) Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 214, 215.

53 York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 42, 42 d. (ordination of vicarage). The annexation was to last during
the tenure of the archdeaconry by William of Hambleton. The advowson then reverted to Selby Abbey,
who appropriated the church. A vicarage was ordained 27 May 1348 (York Epis. Reg. Zouche, fol. 22).

5 Stubbs, Hist. C&. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 409, 410.

5 York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 106d., 107, 108.

58 Stubbs, Hist. CA. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 410.

57 York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 38.

58 Stubbs, Hist. CA. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 410 ; Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 123, 124.

59 Lert, N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 133, 134. © Ibid. 134, 135.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

secration did not take place until two years after his election ; he survived
it little more than a year,” and the chapter, early in November 1299, elected
Thomas of Corbridge, sacrist of St. Sepulchre’s.” He was consecrated by
Boniface VIII on 28 February 1299-1300." His journey home gave rise
to a wrangle with Archbishop Winchelsey.“ Then the convent of Durham
besought his aid against Bishop Bek,® and at Beverley he deprived the
pluralist provost, Aymo de Carto, and resisted the attempts of the king to
restore him.” The king, during the recent vacancies of the see, had granted
dignities and prebends to several foreigners and non-residents. Corbridge’s
preferment in St. Sepulchre’s, and his prebend, had been given to John Bush ;
while the pope had granted the sacristship to an Italian. The latter did not
live long, and is said to have repented his non-residence on his death-bed.
Boniface gave the nomination to Corbridge, who appointed Gilbert Segrave,
a canon of Lincoln, disregarding the royal candidate. Edward I confiscated
the temporalities of the see, retaining them till Corbridge’s death.® Corbridge
thus suffered for a courageous attitude towards abuses of patronage. In two
churches of the chapter of York, Weaverthorpe and Burton Leonard, he
ordained vicarages ;* in Myton-on-Swale and Overton Churches, both appro-
priated to St. Mary’s Abbey, and in East Witton, appropriated to Jervaulx.”
Nafferton Church was appropriated to Meaux Abbey in May 1303, and a
vicarage ordained; but a final ordination was made the year after by Arch-
bishop Greenfield.”

Corbridge died at Laneham-on-Trent 22 September 1304, and was
buried at Southwell.” The chapter elected the king’s chancellor, William
Greenfield, Dean of Chichester, who had been a canon of York.® Owing to
the disturbed state of the papal succession, it was not until January 1305-6
that the archbishop-elect was consecrated at Lyons. On his return he
had to buy the temporalities of his see from their guardian,” and when
he sent his servitium camerae to Rome at Christmas he was obliged to
request time for further payments.” Almost at once he was called upon to
defend the Scottish border against Robert Bruce, who had been crowned at
Scone in March 1305-6.% Fugitives from Scotland took refuge in the north
under pressure of war and poverty. A nun of the dispersed house of Cold-
stream was suffered to live in an anchorage at Doncaster.” Danger united

Greenfield and his suffragans closely. On 29 May 1311, Richard of Kellawe,

*! Newark was elected 7 May 1296, consecrated 15 June 1298, and died 15 Aug. 1299 (Stubbs,
Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], ii, 410) ; York Epis. Reg. Newark, fol. 20d.
° Cal. Pat. 1292-1301, p. 455.

® Stubbs, Hist. CA. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 411. Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 357.
% Lert. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 144, 145.

Ibid. 166, 167. 7 Cal. Pat. 1292-1301, p. 512.
* Stubbs, Hist. C+. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 411, 412 ; cf. Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 356.
Lawton, Coll. 281, 552. “ Ibid. 449, 452, 574.

7 Ibid. 306. Ducarel’s Repertory in Lawton, op. cit. 600, 601, gives several references.
” Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 412, who gives the year wrongly as 1303.
® Ibid. 413. Greenfield, a relation of Giffard (York Reg. Giffard, [Sur. Soc. cix], 121), was promoted

by him to canonries at Southwell and Ripon (ibid. 67, 92, 271).

21 Mar. 1305-6. The temporalities were estimated at £3,134 195. 5d. (Hist. CA. York [Rolls Ser.],
ili, 235 seq.).

™ Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 179 seq.

* Ibid. 180. Greenfield told Clement V (ibid. 177, 178), in a letter from Newcastle 20 Oct. 1306,
that he had been inquiring about the relics at Scone,

” Ibid. i, 169 seq.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Bek’s successor, was consecrated in York Minster and professed obedience. In
addition to the Bishops of Carlisle and Whithorn, the Bishop of Argyll
helped to consecrate.” Greenfield and Kellawe worked together in defending
the border. They held a council of clergy and nobles at York in January
1315, at which the clergy agreed to contribute 2d. in the mark towards
defensive operations.” At the same time the prelates resisted any attempt
to over-tax the clergy, and in 1312 communicated the refusal of the northern
convocation of the aid of 12d. in the mark, which Edward II demanded
for the Scottish war. In 1314 Greenfield ordered his official to inhibit
Sir Nicholas Meynell from pressing the clergy of Bulmer and Ryedale into
military service." At the beginning of his rule Greenfield had ten knights
with the king in Scotland.” He allowed one of the vicars of Beverley
Minster to take the standard of St. John northward in 1310," and pro-
moted preaching against the Scots, sending Dr. Gower, rector of Whel-
drake, toa rendezvous at Northallerton (20 January 1314-15) for that purpose.*

Greenfield ordained vicarages in the treasurer’s churches of Alne and
Acomb,® in the dean’s church of Kilnwick Percy, in the prebendal churches
of Ampleforth, Bishop Wilton, Salten, and Strensall.*” Other ordinations of
vicarages by Greenfield were in the churches of Brafferton, appropriated to
Newburgh; Edston Magna, to Hexham; Sancton, to Watton; and Skipsea,
to Meaux.® Greenfield died at Cawood 6 December 1315, and was buried
at York ‘ with the honour due to so great a father.’ ®

William Melton, his successor, was elected at the instance of Edward II.”
His consecration took place at Avignon in October 1317." The historical
interest of his episcopate is centred in the Scottish wars. In September
1319 a detachment of Scots attacked York. Melton met them at Myton-on-
Swale. His 10,000 men were largely recruited from his clergy, the ordinary
militia being with Edward II at Berwick, and were completely defeated by
the invaders. The Scots derisively called the battle the Chapter of Myton.
from the number of clergy in it.” In November, Melton, asking a number
of the abbots and priors in his diocese for an aid, pleaded that Hexham,
Ripon, Otley, and Sherburn had been laid waste; his army, including many
of his tenants, had been slain at Myton; his horses, carriages, arms, vessels of
silver and brass, had been lost there by the clumsiness of their guardians.”
He reckoned in July 1318 that the possessions of the archbishopric had been
reduced to half their value. Tadcaster Church was destroyed. The Scots

‘® Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 233 seq. ™ Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 233, 234, 237, 243, 244.
© Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 210, 211.

8! Tbid. 235, 236. * Ibid. 179 seq. (see note 75 above).

® Tbid. 198. Thid., 242, 243.

® Lawton, Coll. 432, 46. % Ibid. 350.

% Thid. 512, 328, 535, 461.

“ Ibid. 426, 516, 363, 414. Featherstone, appropriated to Nostell, may possibly be counted as well
(ibid. 124).

® Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 414, 415.

* Melton’s benefices, including the provostship of Beverley, are enumerated by Dixon and Raine, op. cit.
398-400. See Cal. Pat. 1307-13, pp. 2, 92, 116, 117, 286, 350, for various preferments between 1307
and 1311.

* Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 415.

* See Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 402, 403, for an account of the battle and authorities.

® Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 295, 296. See also ibid. (294) for a letter to the rural dean of Sher-
burn about the goods of archiepiscopal tenants who had died at Myton.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

had encamped in Pannal Church and burned it on departing. A detachment
of their army had Jain in Fountains Abbey; its granges and outbuildings were
so ruined by fire and pillage that its goods were insufficient to maintain
the monks. Nidderdale, Airedale, and Wharfedale, with Allertonshire, were
plundered, and their churches depreciated in value.* In 1320 Bolton
Priory, which had shared the disaster, was brought to extremities by a mur-
tain, as in 1292; the canons were temporarily dispersed among other
Augustinian houses.*° In 1322 Northallerton Church was burned by the
Scots, who ravaged the North Riding.” The canons of Marton, the nuns
of Rosedale and Moxby, were dispersed and quartered in other convents.”
In 1328 the commissioners for taxing the goods of Egglestone Abbey found
nothing to tax.” Clerks were carried off by the invaders, and forced to take
full orders at the hands of excommunicated Scottish prelates.” Meanwhile
the king demanded subsidies to pursue the war,’ and in 1333, for example,
Edward III ordered five abbots and the Prior of Bridlington to send him
a stout cart, well bound with iron, and five horses for the campaign of
Halidon Hill.

The Scottish war loosened the tie which bound Melton to one of his
suffragans, the Bishop of Whithorn,’ and a dispute with Bishop Beaumont of
Durham led to litigation and acts of violence on both sides. Controversies
arose about the archbishop’s jurisdiction at Hull. At Beverley his right of
assize of bread and ale was questioned, and his bailiffs assaulted* ; at Ripon
(1337) his prison for condemned clerks was broken open, and the gates of his
manor broken down.’ York was disturbed by quarrels between the Abbot of
St. Mary’s and the citizens over the jurisdiction of Bootham.® In 1328 the
dean and chapter claimed protection from the king against the archbishop,
with whom they were at variance.’

Melton’s public life did not hinder his work in his diocese. He held
regular ordinations and confirmations, visited the sick willingly and absolved
the bodies of all dead persons which were brought to him.” There was no
decrease in the number of non-residents and foreigners instituted to rich
benefices." Appropriations to monastic houses and prebends went on at the
usual rate and, in 1323, Melton obtained temporary leave from John XXII
to appropriate the church of Bolton Percy to his table.” But at least
twenty-six ordinations of vicarages are recorded in his time. Among these

* Melton to the Treasury (Let. N. Reg. [Rolls Ser.], 279 seq).

* Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 306 seq. % Cal. Pat. 1321-4, p. 344.

7 Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 315, 316, mentions especially the Scottish inroads on the archdeaconry of
Richmond.

% Ibid. 318 seq. Tbid. 352 seq. See also Cas. Pat. 1330-4, p. 463.
1 Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 330, 3313 ibid. 317, 318.
' Tbid. 344 seq. ® Cal. Pat. 1330-4, p. 446.

3 See note 79 above, p. 15, for references.

* Graystanes, cap. xlii (Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres. [Surt. Soc.], 105, 106); Let. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.),
358, 359, contains the archbishop’s complaint to John XXII. The spirituality of Allertonshire was the
main ground of dispute.

° Cal. Pat. 1330-4, p. 200. 6 Ibid. pp. 575, 576.
" Ibid. 1334-7, p. 511. 8 Ibid. pp. 27, 28; ibid. pp. 15 seq.
* Ibid. 1327-30, p. 336. ” Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 416.

" See e.g. two Gascon prebendaries mentioned, Ca/. Pat. 1324-7, p- 433 Gaucelin, cardinal priest of
SS. Marcellinus and Peter, prebendary of Driffield and parson of Hemingbrough (ibid. p. 44) ; and two
cardinals, claiming in succession the treasurership of York against Walter of Bedwin (ibid. p. 151; ibid.
1330-4, p. 186). 12 Lawton, op. cit. 54.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

may be noted the long deferred ordination of Skipton Church (1326) " and
of Swine (1338). To the new foundation at Haltemprice were appro-
priated Wharram Percy (1327) and Cottingham (1338).'° In 1331 Aber-
ford Church was appropriated to Oriel College, Oxford.” Melton established
his right of visitation over the chapter of York in 1328.7 His liberality to
the minster made the completion of the nave possible.* The new work in
the nave of Beverley Minster was begun in his time and the decoration of the
-chapter-house of York probably finished. An important document is his com-
position with the Archdeacon of Richmond, allowing to the archdeacon his
extraordinary powers, but reserving to himself the right of occasional visitation
of the archdeaconry.” He appointed the ex-Archbishop of Armagh his assis-
tant in 1333,% and commissioned John, Bishop of Glasgow, who was a
refugee in England, to ordain in the diocese.”

A curious feature of the religious life of Yorkshire at this time was
the popular devotion paid to Thomas of Lancaster at Pontefract. Since
St. William, the county had produced one canonized saint, Robert Flower,
the hermit of Knaresborough.” A year after Thomas’s execution (1322)
unauthorized pilgrims were crowding to his tomb ‘with as much danger to
their bodies as to their souls.’*% Melton forbade these assemblies ; but after
the death of Edward II Henry of Lancaster pressed an inquiry into the
miracles wrought at his brother’s tomb, and Melton wrote to John XXII
about canonization.* Archbishop Zouche countenanced the devotion; a
chapel was built on the site of Thomas’s execution,” and Legh and Layton
long afterwards found the girdle of the earl reverenced for the assistance
which it afforded to women in travail.*7, Another Yorkshire saint who met
with recognition before the end of the century was John Thweng, Prior of
Bridlington, who died in 1379.”

A month after Melton’s death at Cawood the chapter elected their dean,
William la Zouche (May 1340). Edward III had another nominee in the
field, and the cause was debated by the rivals at Avignon.” Eventually

'S Lawton, op. cit. 26 (see note 44 above, p. 34). 4 Ibid. 603, ‘Ducarel’s Repertory.’

* Ibid. 284, 334. Ibid. 45.

” Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 416. See also Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 412, 412 n.

"® Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 417. The seated statue of a prelate over the west door is no
doubt that of Melton.

°° Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 248 seq.

* Ibid. 253, 254.

” Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 299, 300.

* Matt. Paris mentions miracles at Robert’s tomb in 1239 (Chron. Maj. [Rolls Ser.], iii, 521). The
growth of unauthorized devotions in the county is illustrated by a mandate from Melton (9 Apr. 1315) for-
bidding the adoration of an image of our Lady recently placed in the church of Foston-on-the-Wolds (Law-
ton, Co/?. 298).

* Lert. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 323 seq.

* Letter in Lett, N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 339, 340.

* Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 340 seq. © Ibid. 385.

” L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, p. 141. An office of St. Thomas of Lancaster, containing inter alia a hymn
or a ‘Pange lingua gloriosi comitis martyrium,.’ is quoted in Political Songs (ed. Wright, Camd. Soc. 1840),
268 seq.

* Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 420, 421, contains a letter from the Vicar-General of York, dated
26 July 1386, on the subject of the miracles reported at Prior Thweng’s tomb. See Dict. Nat. Biog. xxix,
451.

* Melton died 5 Apr. (Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], ii, 417).

_ © Cal. Pat. 1340-3, p. 110: appointment of royal proctors to object against appointment of Zouche at
Avignon, accusing Zouche of treachery and murder. Edward’s candidate was William of Kilsby ; Stubbs,
Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ti, 417, 418.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Clement VI consecrated Zouche, and the king withdrew his objections.”
The two great events of Zouche’s primacy were his redemption at
Neville’s Cross (1347) of Melton’s failure at Myton,” and the Black
Death. In July 1348 the plague was threatening Yorkshire ; it lasted till
the end of 1349. Nearly one half of the parish priests of the arch-
deaconries of York and Cleveland are said to have perished.** ‘To supply the
deficiency four additional ordinations a year were permitted.* Hugh,
Archbishop of Damascus, conferred orders and dedicated graveyards for
Zouche.* Meanwhile the visitation of Durham was disputed between Zouche
and Bishop Hatfield. On 6 February 1348-9 clerks of the bishop made a dis-
graceful scene in York Minster.*’ Zouche, however, was mindful of the
‘spiritual welfare of his flock, insisted on the observance of festivals, especially
those of the Blessed Virgin,** and incurred excommunication by resisting a
papal provision to the deanery of York. His chapel on the south side of
the quire of York Minster recalls his memory.“ He ordained a large
number of vicarages. Egglestone Abbey impropriated Rokeby Church in
1342, and Great Ouseburn in 1348. Easby, another sufferer from the
Scots, impropriated Manfield (1347).” Meaux Abbey, impoverished by the
Black Death, impropriated Keyingham (1349).*

John of Thoresby, translated from Worcester in 1351, was the first
archbishop translated to the see since Giffard. Zealously earnest for the good
of his much-tried people, Thoresby assiduously held visitations, and provided
his clergy with an epitome of the religious teaching which he desired them
to give.“ His ordinations of vicarages include Harewood, appropriated to
the monastery of Bolton (1353), Hemingbrough, to Durham (1356), All
Saints Pontefract, to Pontefract (1361), and Appleton-le-Street, to St. Albans
(1358).*° He also appropriated Huntington Church to the sub-chanter and
vicars-choral of York (1354),*° and ordained vicarages in other churches
belonging to the chapters of York, Beverley, and Howden.*’ In two respects
his pontificate marks an epoch in the history of the see. He brought the
strife with Canterbury to an end ; the use of the cross by one primate in the
other’s province was allowed, but the title of primas totius Britanniae was ceded
to Canterbury.“ And, on 30 July 1361, Thoresby laid the foundation stone

| Cal. Pat. 1340-3, pp. 502, 504, 514. * Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 387 seq.

In York it lasted from about the Ascension (21 May) to St. James’s Day (25 July) 13493; Stubbs,
Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 418.

4 C, Creighton, ap. Traill and Mann, Social Engl. ii, 188.

% Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 401, 402.

* Hist. Ch. York. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 268 seq. Chapels dedicated include Fulford, Cleasby, Seamer-in-
Cleveland, Brotton, and Easby-in-Cleveland.

Lett. N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 397 seq. *® Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 254. seq.

* See notice of Zouche in Dict. Nar. Biog. lxiii, 420 seq.

* Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 418, 419 ; will of Zouche and licence from dean and chapter to
build chapel, printed in Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 271 seq.

Lawton, op. cit. §82, 557. “ Ibid. 580; Cal. Pat. 1345-8, p. 362.

* Lawton, op. cit. 400.

“For an account of this work, issued in Latin and English in 1357, see Dixon and Raine, op. cit.
469 seq. Both versions have been edited by T. F. Simmons and H. E. Nolloth (Early Engl. Text. Soc.
orig. series, no. 118, 1891).

“ Lawton, op. cit. 63, 440, 146, §13. “ Ibid. 445.

” Mediety of Bubwith (1365), Welwick (1361), Laxton (1370) ; Lawton, op. cit. 331, 421, 348.
The other mediety of Bubwith, in which a vicarage was also ordained, was impropriated by Byland Abbey.

Ai “ Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 419. The agreement is in York Epis. Reg. Lawrence Booth,
ol. 77.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

of the new eastern arm of York Minster. He lived to finish the Lad
Chapel.” When /Eneas Sylvius visited York in 1435 he spoke of the
light interior of the completed church, its walls of glass, and its slender
clustered piers.”

Thoresby and his successor, Alexander Nevill, received mandates from
the pope and king to proceed against heretics in their diocese.” Innocent VI
tells Thoresby that such heretics are said to impugn the necessity of good
works to salvation, and the doctrine of original sin. Whatever his attitude
towards heretics may have been, Nevill’s sixteen years of office (1374-88)
were mainly spent in useless quarrels with his chapter. He drove vicars out
of Beverley Minster, replacing them by unwilling substitutes from York.
The expelled vicars, after some wretched years of fugitive wandering, obtained
restoration ; * and Nevill, after a long process, was cast in his suit before the
-curia. His support of Richard II combined with unpopularity at home to
effect his downfall. The Parliament of 1388 attainted him of treason.
He attempted to escape abroad, but was taken at Tynemouth,® and was
eventually banished. Urban VI translated him to the see of St. Andrews—
an empty honour, as Scotland recognized the anti-pope.® Nevill died at
Louvain in 1392.”

To Nevill succeeded Thomas Arundel, Bishop of Ely, translated in 1388.*
He was translated to Canterbury in 1396. His successor, Robert Waldby,
Bishop of Chichester, spent the forty weeks of his primacy in London, and was
buried in Westminster Abbey.” In June 1398 Innocent VII translated
Richard Scrope from Coventry and Lichfield.” The new archbishop received
Bolingbroke on his landing, and gave a qualified support to his claims. But
the attitude of Henry IV to the Church drove Scrope into opposition.
Making common cause with the survivors of Shrewsbury, he excommuni-
cated the king.” On 29 May 1405 he assembled his men on Shipton Moor,
near York, declaring his intention of seeking redress, by peaceful discussion,
from the taxes with which the Church was burdened. ‘The king’s representa-
tives lured him to a conference ; he walked with his cross erect into the trap,
and was taken prisoner to Pontefract. The king was at Bishopthorpe, and
Scrope was brought to trial in his own hall, where a judge appointed by
Henry on the refusal of the Chief Justice pronounced sentence of death.”
Scrope was beheaded near Clementhorpe Priory ; four vicars-choral of the

© Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 420, 421. With Thoresby, Stubbs’s portion of the Chron. Pontif.
ends ; and his continuator soon begins to be far less full in detail.

* Cal. Papal Letters, 18 Aug. 1355 (iii, 565); Cal. Pat. 1381-5, p. 487.

“ Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 424 3 Cal. Pat. 1385-9, pp. 401-2, &c.

* Cal. Pat. 1385-9, p. 484.

** Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 424 ; Cal. Pat. 1385-9, p. 504. The same compliment was paid to
Archbishop Arundel in 1398.

* Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 424.

* Mandate to restore temporalitics, 14 Sept. 1388 (Ca/. Pat. 1385-9, p. 504). Arundel received his
pall at Cambridge on the same day ; Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), li, 425. The account of his episcopate in
Hist. Ch, York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 425 seq., is chiefly a recitation of his gifts to the minster.

°° Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 427, 428, © Ibid. 428, 429.

* Ibid. 430 seq. Scrope’s ‘ Articuli contra Henricum Quartum ” (MS. C.C.C. Camb. 197, fol. 85-98)
are printed in Hist. CA, York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 292 seq.

* Narrative of Scrope’s rebellion in Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 288 seq.

Henry Bower (1409-1423)

Acexanver NeviLe (1374-1392)

)

139d

397

Roper Warperny (1

Roserr Wacrversy (1397-1398)

York ArcuiepiscopaL Srars—Prare IL

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

minster buried his body next day with maimed rites.® The Yorkshire
commons saw in Scrope, as in Thomas of Lancaster, the champion of liberty
against royal exactions.“ Tradition smote his judge with leprosy. Miracles
were reported from his tomb, and a cult came into existence which royal
commissioners found hard to suppress.”

The r1sth century is nearly covered by the episcopates of Henry
Bowet, translated from Wells (1407), John Kemp, translated from London

1426) and to Canterbury, William Booth, translated from Coventry and
Lichfield (1452), George Nevill, translated from Exeter (1465), and Law-
rence Booth, translated from Durham (1476). Kemp and Nevill held the
chancellorship of England for a time with the archbishopric ; while Kemp
became a cardinal-priest in 1439, and a cardinal-bishop after his final trans-
lation. Nevill suffered by the Wars of the Roses, in which he played an
adroit but not very successful part.

Evidence of the active church-life of this century in Yorkshire, as
elsewhere, is present in the number of parish churches built and enlarged
during its course. The churches of Tickhill, Rotherham, Harewood, and
Thirsk were almost entirely rebuilt. Large additions were made to impor-
tant parish churches like Wakefield, Halifax, and Silkstone. The nave and
tower of Holy Trinity at Hull were completed. In 1404 Bishop Skirlaw of
Durham founded the chapel of Skirlaugh in Swine parish." Contracts
for the building of Catterick Church (1412) and the south aisle of Hornby
Church (1410) still exist. In 1424 the Bishop of Dromore, Bowet’s
suffragan, consecrated the rebuilt church of Bolton Percy.” The east
window was filled about fifty years later with stained glass: in the lower
lights are full-length figures of Archbishop George Nevill and his pre-
decessors Scrope, Bowet, Kemp, and William Booth. In 1458 John,
Bishop of Philippi, consecrated a church at Cowthorpe, built by Sir
Brian Rocliffe on a new site.” Side by side with the work of rebuilding
and enlargement went on the foundation of chantries. The chantry had
taken the place of the monastery as an object of popular bequest. The
stipend of the chantry-priest served not only to commemorate the founder,
but to provide the parish priest with much-needed help. Pious parishioners
often united in applying land and goods to the maintenance of a chantry-
priest where the parish was large and services many. At Rotherham the
chantry-priest at the altar of the Holy Cross, whose stipend was founded by
John and Isabel Palden (1421), aided the parochial clergy in their Lenten
task of hearing confessions and houseling the penitent. Parishioners founded
stipends for priests to say the eight o’clock mass every Saturday at the Lady

* Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 433.

* See the list of seven reasons for his execution in Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 304, 305.
. “Narrative quoted in note 62 above. The author of the ‘Martyrium’ of Scrope (Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.],
ii, 306 seq. : see note above), following Stubbs (ibid. 433), says that the king himself was struck with leprosy
on his way to Ripon from Bishopthorpe, and passed a wretched night at Hammerton. Both stories are prob-
ably apocryphal.

* Three letters from the Chapter Acts, 1410-29, fol. 43, are printed in Hist. Cs. York (Rolls Ser.), iii,
291 seq. Offerings intended for Scrope were to be laid at St. William’s tomb. The Duke of Bedford
(21 Sept. 1405) ordered the ‘ clausure de charpenterie’ erected round the tomb of Scrope to be taken down,
and a barrier to be made ‘ pour fare estoppoill a les faux foles que y veignent par colour de devocion.’

. Lawton, Coll. 418. * Printed by H. B. McCall, Richmondshire Churches (19099).
Lawton, op. cit. 55. The person responsible for the rebuilding was Thomas Parker, rector, who died
1423, ” Tbid. 60.

3 41 6

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

altar, and the six o’clock mass daily at St. Katherine’s altar.™ The
commissioners of Henry VIII reported of the chantry of St. Nicholas
in Doncaster Church, founded 1323, that there are ‘mm howslyng people
and above within the sayd paryshe, wherof the sayd incumbent and
other vij prystes, now resiaunt in the sayd churche, can skant here the
confessions of the sayd parochians from the begynnyng of Lente unto Palme
Sonday, and then ministre the blessed Sacrement all the sayd weke, with
other requisite besines to be doon in the sayd churche.’ Every day matins,
mass, and evensong were sung in quire, and there were six masses, at 5, 6, 7,
8,9, and 10 a.m.” At some places, as Bedale, Well, and Skipton, a chantry-
priest was also schoolmaster of the place.” Bishop Alcock of Worcester
obtained licence in 1482 to found a chantry in the high church at Hull,
whose incumbent was to teach a free grammar-school in Hull, to pay qos.
to a clerk to teach children to sing, and half a mark to each of the
ten best scholars.% Rotherham’s college in his native town was founded to
provide masters of grammar, writing, and song for the children of the
neighbourhood, and to provide a common dwelling-place for the chantry-
priests of the parish church, who hitherto had lodged in laymen’s houses, ‘ to
their scandal and the ruin of other folk.’ The schools of Giggleswick and
Sedbergh had their foundation in stipends attached to chantries for the
maintenance of teaching-priests.”

Another form which the foundation of chantries took was the provision
of chapels-of-ease in large and scattered parishes. Where a river, often in
flood, divided the parish, this was very necessary. On the lower waters of
the Aire, Whitley Chapel was founded in Kellington parish, Haddlesey in
Birkin, and Airmyn, Carlton, Hook, and Rawcliffe in Snaith.” At Pockley,
in the parish of Helmsley, a stock of sheep was appropriated by the
parishioners to the maintenance of a chaplain.” The extremities of the
enormous parish of Halifax were served by one or more chaplains at
Elland and Heptonstall.% The large parishes of the dales, Aysgarth,
Wensley, and Catterick, also received necessary subdivision.” In other
cases chapels such as that on Wakefield Bridge, founded 1398, or St. Mary
Magdalen’s Chapel at Doncaster, founded 1413, were useful for sick persons
in time of plague, who were cut off from their parish church.”

It is difficult to obtain absolutely accurate statistics as to the growth of
chantry foundations in Yorkshire. In many cases, when the commissioners
required a return, the documents relating to the foundation had been lost, or
the foundation rested merely on custom. In York Minster at least nine
chantry priests, in addition to the clergy of St. Sepulchre’s Chapel, served
altars in the church during the 13th century. Sixteen received stipends
during the 14th century. Nine more are recorded between 1413 and 1459.
In 1461 George Nevill, Bishop of Exeter, afterwards archbishop, and his
brother the king-maker, founded St. William’s College for the chantry-priests,

™ Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.) i, 205 seq. ” Tbid. i, 175 seq.

* Ibid. ti, 495, 496, 245.

i Ibid. ii, 340. Alcock became Bishop of Ely, and was founder of Jesus College at Cambridge.
‘Ibid. i, 200, 201 5 will of Abp. Rotherham, in Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 341 seq.

id ag clas Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 410, 414. 8 Ibid. 280, 285, 286, 288.
Ibid. ii, 509. 8 Ibid. 297, 298, 421.
® Ibid. i, 105, 106, 1o4, 113. % Ibid. ii, 312, 313 ; 1, 180.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

under a provost." Six chantry-priests were endowed during the rest of
the 15th century, and three during the 16th, the last foundation being
dated 1537. In each of the three important deaneries of Ainsty, Doncaster,
and Pontefract, one chantry can be traced to a definite foundation in the
13th century.” In the 14th, two chantries in the Ainsty are dated,
one being that of six priests at Harewood (1366) ; eleven in Doncaster ; and
five in Pontefract deanery. For the 15th century the numbers are : Ainsty,
seven ; Doncaster, eleven; Pontefract, thirteen. For the first half of the
16th: Ainsty, three; Doncaster, eight; Pontefract, nine. During the
pontificate of Rotherham, nine chantries were founded in Pontefract
deanery. Seven in Pontefract and five in Doncaster belong to Wolsey’s pon-
tificate.* Small chantry colleges at Lowthorpe (1333) and Sutton-on-Hull |
(1347) were founded in the 14th century. The peculiar foundation of
Kirkby Overblow belongs to 1362.% In 1367 Maud, Lady Marmion,
founded a chantry for a warden and two priests at West Tanfield. Sir
Richard Scrope received licence in 1393 to found a chantry in Bolton Castle |
for a warden and five other priests, which appears to have been founded a few
years later as the college of Wensley.” Of collegiate churches, the most
important were Hemingbrough, founded in 1426 by the Prior and convent
of Durham, and Middleham, founded in 1478 by Edward IV, at the request
of the Duke of Gloucester. Howden Church had been made collegiate as
early as 1267. The divided rectory of Osmotherley (1322) also may be
counted among collegiate foundations.”

Associations of parishioners, such as those who combined to put in
chantry-priests here and there, were probably in many cases gilds, whose
chaplain the chantry-priest became. Such gilds are mentioned in connexion
with chantries at Snaith, Whitgift, and Doncaster.” At Tickhill the
incumbent of the gild chantry was admitted by the inhabitants to sing mass
at 6 a.m. on Mondays and Saturdays, and the Jesus mass at g a.m. on Fridays.”
The gild of Corpus Christi at York had its altar and chaplain in Holy
Trinity, Micklegate. This gild, incorporated in 1458, but of earlier origin,
organized the festival plays of Corpus Christi Day. On the second day of the
feast they held a procession through the city with the Blessed Sacrament,
and on the following day a solemn mass and dirge. In their gildhall they
provided eight beds for the lodging of poor strangers, which were kept by a
woman at their expense; ten pensioners were maintained by them yearly.”

Another York gild was that of St. Christopher, founded by licence dated

* Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), i, 7 seq.

Thid. ii, 233 (Ferrybridge) ; i, 158 (Bolton-on-Dearne) ; ii, 289 (Rothwell). ;

® Ibid. The returns for Doncaster Deanery are in vol. i, for Ainsty and Pontefract in vol. il. ;

“ Lawton, Coll. 305,415, 416. Archbishop Melton’s ordinances for the college at Lowthorpe will be
found in Cal. Pat. 1330-4, pp. 426-8. For the Harewood chantry, see Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.),
il, 222. 8 Lawton, op. cit. p. 65.

® Lawton, op. cit. 440, 441; Cal. Pat. 1422-9, p. 382.

® Lawton, op. cit. 568, 569 ; Cal. Pat. 1477-85, p. 67.

* Lawton, op. cit. 345. :

9 Tid. 499 ; Yorks, Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), i, 124. ‘To these notices of chantries and colleges should
be added the mention of the appropriation of Barnby-on-Don Church (1344) to the chantry of Cotterstock,
Northants (Lawton, op. cit. 174), and of Dewsbury and Wakefield (1349), Sandal Magna (1356), and Kirk-
burton (1357), to St. Stephen’s Chapel at Westminster (ibid. 120, 161, 152, 141).

” Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 284, 288, 289 ; i, 181, 182.

8 Thid. 1, 186. “ Ibid. i, 54; Drake, Edoracum, 246.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

12 March 1395-6, to which the gild of St. George was united at a later
date. In 1426 this gild founded two chantries in the minster ; and in
1446 its master and brethren joined the lord mayor and commonalty in
building the present gildhall.* At Beverley, Hull, Ripon, Rotherham,
Wakefield, and other towns important gilds were erected ; and, as at Beverle
and Wakefield, some of these organized the religious dramas of the Corpus
Christi festival. The gild of the Holy Trinity at Hull, founded 1369,
and incorporated by charter of 20 Henry VI, survives as the Brotherhood
of Trinity House.”

In 1480 Lawrence Booth was succeeded by Thomas Scott, Bishop of
Lincoln and Chancellor of England, better known as Rotherham.” He was
not enthroned until a year after his translation.” Much of his diocesan work
was transacted by a suffragan and vicar-general. Since the beginning of the
14th century the archbishops had employed the occasional help of suffra-
gans,! to whom they assigned definite stipends. The Bishop of Sodor and
Man was commissioned to celebrate orders in 1351 and 1353.’ In 1359
Geoffrey, Archbishop of Damascus, was appointed suffragan by Thoresby,
who employed at least four other suffragans at different times, not counting
the Bishops of Carlisle and Norwich.* During the 15th century successive
Bishops of Dromore were suffragans. One of these consecrated churches for
Archbishop Bowet in 1424,° and dedicated Holy Trinity at Hull in 1425.
Three chapels were consecrated by the bishop who helped Rotherham—
Middlesmoor (1484), Wentworth (1491), and Hook (1499).° Ordinations
were also conducted by him.’ Various bishops 7 partibus aided the arch-
bishops during the 15th century ; and the Bishop of Negropont consecrated
Huddersfield Church for Archbishop Savage in 1503.”

Rotherham died in 1500. His three successors emphasized the detach-
ment of the archbishop from his see. ‘Thomas Savage, translated from London
(1501), was never publicly enthroned at York. At Beverley he was enthroned
by proxy : for the first time, none of the banquets and rejoicings at the incoming
of a new archbishop were held. His biographer calls him a mighty hunter,
and mentions his household of tall servants, and his works of rebuilding and
repair at Cawood and Scrooby.* Christopher Bainbridge, translated from
Durham (1508), spent five out of the six years of his archiepiscopate at
Rome, and died there, poisoned, as his servants maintained, by the connivance

*’ Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), i, 82 ; Drake, op. cit. 329, 330.

* See, with reference to the Yorkshire gilds and dramas, Ten Brink, Hist. Engl. Literature (Engl. trans.
1895), 11, 256 seq. Some important Yorkshire gilds are enumerated by Page, Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.),
i, pref. p. ix. * Lawton, op. cit. 389.

* Translated 3 Sept. 1480 ; Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 439.

® 8 Sept. 1481 ; ibid. 439, 440.

'® Irish bishops were frequently employed, e.g. the Bishop of Annaghdown by Greenfield, and the Bishop
of Leighlin, appointed suffragan by Zouche in 1344.

' Dixon and Raine, op. cit. 446, 458.

* Ibid. 458, 459 note, 460 and note, 475 note.

; 4 Viz. St. Crux and St. Helen’s-on-the-Walls, York ; Bolton Percy, Wigginton, and a chapel in Seamer
(Pickering Lythe) parish (Lawton, op. cit. 9, 11, 55, 473, 312).

‘ Ibid. 388.

* Ibid. 569, 241, 158.

* Leigh Bennett, Archbishop Rotherham (1901), 130.
ms ” Lawton, op. cit. 137. The Bishop of Philippi consecrated Cowthorpe Church in 1458 ; see note 70

ve.

* At Cawood, 29 May 1500 (Hist. Ch. York [Rolls Ser.], ii, 440). * Ibid. 442.
44

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

of the Bishop of Worcester, Silvestro de Gigliis.’ Bainbridge was made a

_ cardinal by Julius II." On his death (1514) the archbishopric was given to

Wolsey, then Bishop of Lincoln, who was created cardinal in Levey?
Although Wolsey was careful to assert his dignity in competition with
Archbishop Warham,” he delayed his installation until the last year of his
life,* and held three English sees in succession with his archbishopric.”
His progress into Yorkshire (1530) was marked by belated spiritual energy.
He stayed two nights at Nostell Priory, spending six hours of the intermediate
day in confirming children. Before leaving next day he confirmed about a
hundred more, and some two hundred at Ferrybridge.* He remained at
Cawood for nearly a month, purposing to be installed on 7 November, and to
spend the rest of his life in his diocese? On 4 November the Earl of
Northumberland arrested him at Cawood, and two days later he set out on
the southward journey, which ended at Leicester on St. Andrew’s Day."
The secularization of the office of archbishop was reflected in the case
of lesser dignities. When the Queen-dowager of Scotland came to York at
Whitsuntide 1517, her entertainers were the Abbot of St. Mary’s, the Dean
of York, and Thomas Dalby, Archdeacon of Richmond.” Dalby, who
resided at York, was constantly quarrelling with the rest of the chapter.”
His successor, William Knight, reopened the controversy about his rights as
archdeacon with Archbishop Lee.” Thomas Magnus, Archdeacon of the
East Riding, was canon of Lincoln and Windsor, and Dean of the chapel at
Bridgenorth ;” his Yorkshire preferments included the sacristship of St. Sepul-
chre’s,” the wardenship of St. Leonard’s Hospital,* the rich rectory of Bedale,
and the rectories of Kirkby-in-Cleveland and Sessay.* Brian Higdon, Dean
of York, held the rectory of Stokesley; no vicar is mentioned under him in
the survey of 1534—5.° From that survey and other sources it appears that
between three and four fifths of the rectories in the diocese were appropriated.
A hundred belonged to collegiate bodies and chantries, the Dean and canons
of York claiming over seventy. About 250 more were appropriated to
various monasteries.” Among religious houses in other counties which
impropriated Yorkshire churches were Durham Abbey and its cell of

® Hist. Ch. York. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 443. See L. and P. Hen. VIII, i, 5252 (14 July 1514, Cardinal Giulio
de’ Medici announces death of Cardinal of York), 5253, 5254, 5349, 5356, 5365, 5396, 5405, 5448,
5449, 5465, 5651, 5664. The culprit was a certain Rainaldo da Modena, who implicated the Bishop
of Worcester ; but the evidence against the latter was not very strong.

* 10 March 1510-11 (Pastor, Gesch. der Papste [1899], iii, 661, 662). His title was Santa Prassede.

™ to Sept. 1515 (ibid. [1906], iv, 81). His title was Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.

® Cavendish, Life of Wolsey (ed. Ellis, 1899), 19.

™ See account of his interview with Dean Higdon at Cawood ; ibid. 199 seq.

* i.e, administration of Bath and Wells 1518-24, Durham 1524~9, Winchester 1529.

** Cavendish, op. cit. 195, 196.

" Ibid. 199, 201. 8 Ibid. 207 seq.

* L. and P. Hen. VILL, ii, 3336 : Magnus to Wolsey, 3 June 1517.

° Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 444, mentions a dispute between him and Bainbridge ; see L. and P.
Hen. VIII, i, 5169.

” L. and P. Hen. VIII, vi, 1440, 1441, 1451. See Whitaker, Richmondshire, i, 38.

” Dict. Nat. Biog. xxxv, 324 ; L. and P. Hen. VIII, i, 3579.

* Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), i, 5.

* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 17.

* Thid. 245, 89, 98. Bedale was worth {92 75. 8d. gross, £89 45. 8d. net. He was also vicar of
Kendal, Warden of Sibthorpe College, Notts, and Prebendary of Llanbadarn Odwyn in the church of
Llanddewi Brefi (ibid. v, 268, 186 ; iv, 397).

* Ibid. v, 89. 7 Thid. passim.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Finchale, and the Lincolnshire abbeys of Bardney and Thornton.” The
Nottinghamshire houses of Welbeck, Rufford, and Lenton held one church
each.” Other appropriations have been noticed in their place. To these
should be added Kirkleatham, appropriated to Staindrop College (1412) ;
Welton, to the Lancaster chantry in Lincoln Minster (1439) ; and Slaidburn,
to St. Katherine’s chantry in Eccles Church (1456). In 1387 the monks of
Durham appropriated the churches of Bossall and Fishlake to their college in
Oxford ; * and Rudby, at a much later date, was annexed to Wolsey’s Oxford
college.”

Most of the appropriated churches were served by regularly appointed
vicars. The churches in Cleveland belonging to Guisborough and Whitby
were served by temporary curates, provided by the impropriating house.
This arrangement in so large and hilly a district must have led to much
neglect. The want of a learned clergy, capable of giving instruction, was
felt by those who most dreaded religious change. ‘The Augustinian Canons
held their general chapter at Leicester in 1518. The Prior of Guisborough
presided and the Prior of Bridlington preached. A letter was read from
Wolsey emphasizing the necessity of learning as the greatest bulwark of the
Catholic faith, and commenting on the lukewarm studiousness of the order.*!
Lack of scholarship was even more noticeable among the secular clergy. In
1535 Archbishop Lee, an unwilling spectator of change, wrote to Cromwell :
‘we have very few preachers, as the benefices are so small that no learned
man will take them.’* In 1537 he asked Cromwell to remember his request
for preachers and the appointment of resident clergy in the church of York.
He had ordered the archdeacons to present reports of clergy able to preach ;
he found ‘in the archdeaconry of Nottingham not one; in the others very
few.’** The sum of clergy able and willing to preach, in fact, amounted to
twelve.”

By the time that Lee, who had succeeded Wolsey in 1531, was writing
these letters, many changes had come about. In 1534 the king became
supreme head of the Church of England ; and in 1536 the lesser monasteries
were suppressed. Lee himself was a timorous participant in the Pilgrimage
of Grace, but took the oath of allegiance at the surrender of Pontefract Castle.
The greater monasteries were dissolved in 1539, and in 1545, the year follow-
ing Lee’s death, the first Act for dissolving the chantries was passed. Lee
took the middle course, which was best for the true friends of the old order.
In 1534, amid the controversies following the declaration of the royal supre-
macy, he wrote that he had discharged a friar who preached purgatory, ‘in
the avoidance of controversy.’ He visited convents, especially nunneries,
with the paternal care of Wickwane or Romanus. But careful visitation
could not save the monasteries. Their possessions were a fatal attraction to
the would-be spoiler, while the aims of those who saw in scholarship an
ornament and preservative of orthodoxy had been pursued at the expense of

* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 300, 303 ; iv, 81, 73.

* Lawton, op. cit. 489, 371, 269. "Ibid. 424, 193.
* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 89.

* Ibid. gt : ‘non habent vicarios in eisdem sed curatos conductivos.’

*“ L. and P. Hen. VII, ii, App. 48 (16 June 1518). ° Thid. ix, 704.

iB Ibid. xii, 1093. *” Gasquet, Hen. VIII and the Engl. Mon. (1888), i, 23.
* L. and P. Hen. VIII, ix, 704.

* Ibid. v, 171, 173, 147-

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

some of the smaller and less active English houses. Wolsey had received a
bull (1518) authorizing him to visit monasteries. The Bishop of Worcester,
who transmitted the bull, doubted whether Yorkshire houses would take th
visitation kindly.

The pressing task of reforming parochial clergy was expressly left to the
discretion of the bishops : the bull confined itself to more profitable objects
of investigation. While reform was necessary, and in some cases suppres-
sion may have been, the haste with which the royal commissioners, seventeen
years later, performed their visitation, makes any condemnation of Yorkshire
monasteries in general or detail impossible.” Legh and Layton came to York-
shire as suppressors ready to accept general evidence of an unfavourable char-

acter." Their work was done with cynical dispatch ; and their transactions

showed that personal profit was a powerful consideration with them.” The

procured, by private agreement, the resignation of the Abbot of Fountains.
No monk of the house, they reported, was fit to succeed him ; but Marmaduke
Bradley, a prebendary of Ripon, was ready to give Cromwell 600 marks for
the office, and to pay the king £1,000 in firstfruits.* On the day appointed
for Bradley’s election, Layton stayed in York to induce the Prior and
convent of Marton to surrender their house ‘of £140 good lands and
only forty marks of it in spiritual tithes.’** The financial zeal of the com-
missioners would not be slow to detect shortcomings in the religious life ; and

-the evidence on which those shortcomings incurred the charge of wholesale

criminality is open to suspicion of the gravest nature. The immediate bene-
fit to religion of the suppression was negative. The possessions of the abbeys
enriched lay proprietors ; appropriated churches simply changed hands ; the
parochial clergy were in no better case than before; fortunes made out of
monastic spoils were devoted to ends mainly secular. One scheme was con-
templated, of great religious advantage to the unwieldy diocese of York.
This was the erection of the archdeaconry of Richmond into a see with
its cathedral at Fountains.“* In 1541 the archdeaconry was separated from
the see of York, only to be included in the new see of Chester.* The Bishop
of Chester was assured of a revenue, but north-west Yorkshire was practically
left without a bishop.

The suppression of the monasteries brought no profit to the Yorkshire
commons ; and their orthodox and conservative minds were distressed at the
change. The details of the Pilgrimage of Grace belong rather to the
political than the religious history of the county ; but its object was primarily

* L, and P. Hen. VIII, ii, 4399 (7 Aug. 1518). = '

Gasquet, op. cit. i, 286 seq. Froude, Hist. Engi. ii, 315, 316, admitted the haste of their journey, in
which he followed their movements incorrectly, without recognizing the incompatibility of such haste with the
minuteness of detail which he associated with their reports.

" Gasquet, op. cit. i, 287, 288, quotes Layton’s letter of 13 Jan. 1535-6, in which he says : ‘This day
we begin with St. Mary’s Abbey, whereat we suppose to find much evil disposition, both in the abbot and the
convent, whereof, God willing, I shall certify you in my next letter.’ Even if Layton’s suspicions were true,
this was hardly the frame of mind in which to conduct a minute and impartial inquiry.

” Layton became Dean of York in 1539, and pawned the plate of the minster (ibid. 344).

* Ibid. 336, 3373 L. and P. Hen. VILL, x, 137.

“ Gasquet, op. cit. ii, 26, 27 ; L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, 271.

“ Cott. MS. Cleopatra, E iv, fol. 305 (Gasquet, op. cit. ii, 445). ; ;

“Whitaker, Richmondshire, i, 38. By this arrangement it was specially provided that the Bishop of

Chester was not to claim exemption from metropolitan jurisdiction, as representing the Archdeacon of
Richmond,

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

religious. Its leaders expressed the popular discontent at the suppression.
Aske gave voice to the general indignation. One of the notable beauties of
the land, he said, had been destroyed ; property which had been employed in
almsgiving and entertainment of travellers was engrossed by the king and
the farmers of abbey lands. The abbeys of western Yorkshire had supplied
spiritual refreshment to the untaught dalesmen ; they had given hospitality to
traders who went up and down the passes between Yorkshire and Lancashire.”
The insurgents re-peopled Sawley Abbey with its abbot and monks.* But
the disastrous end of the rebellion only made the dissolution of the greater
houses inevitable. The Abbot of Sawley was hanged at Lancaster ; the Abbot
of Whalley suffered in sight of his own abbey ; the Abbots of Jervaulx and
Fountains were hanged at Tyburn.* Jervaulx Abbey was dismantled, and the
lead stripped from the roofs ; Sir Arthur Darcy suggested to Cromwell that
the abbey would be a suitable stable for the royal stud of mares. The
quire of Bridlington Priory and the shrine of St. John Thweng were pulled
down in May 1537; the Duke of Norfolk took away the valuables of the
monastery in plate, vestments, and kind.“ Vengeance for the rebellion thus
anticipated, in several of the greater Yorkshire monasteries, the final act
of suppression.

In spite of general orthodoxy, heretics seem to have appeared in the
diocese during the later part of the 14th century.” Archbishop Bowet
reported to Henry V (1421) the case of one John Taillor or Bilton, con-
demned as obstinate and impenitent, who was now handed over to the secular
arm. Taillor denied transubstantiation of the elements in the Eucharist,
and the necessity of confession to a priest. He argued that, ‘sithen seint
Peter was slayne,’ no priest had power to shrive, and that Holy Church
with his death had ceased to be. The Trinity consisted of Father,
Mother, and Holy Ghost: Jesus Christ was the child of Mary, but not
the Son of God: the Son of God was not yet come. These assertions
were little more than random utterances of a foolish talker. In rgrt,
Roger Gargrave, a parishioner of Wakefield, confessed before the Chan-
cellor of York that he had blasphemed the Sacrament of the altar, ‘openly
saying, that if a calff were vpon the alter I wold rather worship that then
the said holy sacrament ; allegying scripture for me in fourme folowing,
Tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos ; and furthermore shewing and openly
afirmyng that the date was past that God determyned hyme to be in fourme
of brede.’ Gargrave abjured his heresies, which he was said to have imbibed
from a priest at Lincoln, and was sentenced to do public penance in York
Minster.* In 1528 Gilbert Johnson, a ‘Dutch’ carver, resident in York,
and Robert Robinson, of Hull, abjured their heresy. Johnson had denied
necessity of confession to a priest, the power of the clergy to excommunicate,
and the efficacy of prayers for the dead. ‘Holie brede,’ he said, ‘is good
and vertuouse for a man or woman that is hungrie, and the holie water for
a man or woman whan they er hott, to cast opon them to cole them
therwith.’ He refused to carry his candle on Candlemas day, saying ‘ what

. Gasquet, Op. cit. ii, 94, 95. “ Ibid. 107.
bs oe 168 ; Froude, op. cit, iii, 34. - Gasquet, op. cit. li, 173, 174.
id. 171, 172, 437 note. See note 51 above, p. 40.
© Harl. MS. 421, fol. 135, 136. “ York Epis. Reg. Bainbridze, fol. 75.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

vertue is therby?’ He declined to fast for anyone’s pleasure but his own,
and said that priests were worse than Judas, for ‘ Judas sold Almyghtie God
for xxxd., and prestes will sell God for half a penny.’ Robinson denied the
divine origin of fasting, and said that ‘God maide neuer prayers,’ and that
St. Peter was neither pope of Rome nor priest ; he would not confess to a
priest, even if he were ‘at the poynte and article of deith.’ Robinson was
sentenced to do public penance in York Minster and at Hull. Johnson’s
enance was to be performed at York, during the processions of Rogation-
tide and the octave of the Ascension. Johnson was to be beaten at the
four corners of York market-place by the Dean of York, Robinson at Hull,
by the curate of Holy Trinity.* Under Archbishop Lee two cases of here-
tical ‘Dutchmen’ occur from the archdeaconry of Nottingham." In the
second of these a special offence was the introduction into England of the
German translation of the New Testament ; the accused undertook to abstain
from using or selling any books of Luther or his followers. Lee carefully
watched the conduct of preaching in his diocese. The Prior of Carmelites
at Doncaster and the Warden of the Franciscans abused their licences by
preaching against each other, a scandal which necessitated a commission of
inquiry (1534).°” In 1535, Richard Browne, vicar of North Cave, recanted
the statements that the Sacrament of the altar was only a symbolic rite, and
that confession might be made to a layman. A woman, Denise Johnson,
in 1540 abjured her denial that the Sacrament was the body of Christ.”
Another enemy with which the archbishops and their officers had to
contend was the power of superstition over the people. Resort to the help
of a wizard had been a charge preferred against Abbot Whalley of Selby
in the 13th century.” A Rotherham wizard confessed to Archbishop
Rotherham at Scrooby (1481) that he had used charms to cure sick folks,
aid had dealings with a familiar spirit." In 1509 Bainbridge’s vicar-general
examined an extraordinary case. ‘Thomas Jameson, a merchant, sometime
Lord Mayor of York, went with a priest named James Richardson to consult
a wizard at Knaresborough about the recovery of a runaway servant. The
wizard inflamed their fancies with the story of a chest of gold, hidden at a
plice called Mixendale Head, in Halifax parish, ‘and vpon the same chist a
sverd of mayntenaunce, and a booke covered with blakke ledder.’ A canon
of Drax was called in to help with the magical preparations necessary, and
in the end, nine persons, including the canon and another priest, met to
perform incantations in a house at Bingley. Richardson and Jameson brought
two wafers which Richardson proposed to consecrate as a defence against
the familiar in time of conjuration, but the wizard said that this would
prevent the spirit from appearing. The details of this meeting give a
curious picture of the intermingling of superstition with traditional veneration
for religious objects.”

* York Epis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 131d. 132, 132 d. 5 Ibid. Lee, fol. 82 d. 83 ; 89 d.-9g1.

* Thid. fol. 91, 91 d. 58 Ibid. fol. ggd. 100.

“Ibid. fol. 141d. As a result of the passing of the Six Articles (1539) Valentine Frees, son of
the first York printer, and his wife were burned on Knavesmire (Ornsby, Dioc. Hist. York, 283 : see Foxe,
Acts and Monuments (ed. Cattley), iv, 695).

* York Epis. Reg. Rotherham, quoted without reference by Leigh Bennett, Archbishop Rotherham (1901),
IIo, III note,

“ York Epis. Reg. Bainbridge, fol. 68 seq. ; Arch. Fourn. xvi.

3 49 7

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

In 1542 Archbishop Lee exchanged the manors of Beverley, Skidby,
and Bishop Burton with the king for the dissolved priory of Marton and
several monastic manors.® Robert Holgate, translated from Llandaff (1545)
continued the policy of exchange, surrendering the manors of the see for
impropriations and advowsons." After the attainder of Sir Francis Bigod
(1537) the king granted the rectory of Lythe with others to Holgate, who
appropriated it and ordained a vicarage. This appears to be the last case of
appropriation in the history of the diocese. Holgate, a native of Hems-
worth, had been Prior of Watton and Master of Sempringham. On resigning
the property of the order he became Bishop of Llandaff, and was president
of the North from 1538 to 1550. An eager reformer, he married a wife in
1549. In 1554 he was deprived by Mary and sent to the Tower, but was
released and allowed to retire to Hemsworth.® The prejudiced testimony of
his contemporaries makes an accurate judgement of his character difficult to
form. He was named among the Yorkshire commissioners appointed by
the second Act for dissolution of the chantries, which revived the Act of
1545, but covered a larger number of foundations, and specially mentioned
the religious reason for their suppression.” The new returns reported
upon the character and attainments of the chantry priests. One priest at
Hornby was definitely reported as not meet to serve his cure. Several
were reported to be sickly, blind, or impotent, including three at Don-
caster.” In point of learning there was some variety. Otherwise the
actual returns form a striking and suggestive contrast to the probably
fictitious comperta of the monastic visitors. The extremists now at the
head of affairs could not conscientiously spare the chantries. They fol-
lowed the monasteries, and their proceeds were absorbed by the Protector’s
expedition to Scotland, or applied to the purposes of private owners.”
Another Act of 1547 provided for the union of parishes in the city of York.
The preamble states that the prosperity of the city had so dwindled that
some of the benefices had sunk to a yearly value of 26s. 8¢., so that it was
impossible for a good curate to hold them.” Chantry priests and unfrocked
monks were the last resort, the city was ‘replenished with blind guides and
pastors,’ and the people kept in ignorance of their duty towards God, the
king, andthe commonwealth. New livings were to be formed with values not
exceeding £20 a year ; superfluous churches might be pulled down and their
stipends devoted to the repair and enlargement of others; the former
patrons were to be allowed to have right of alternate presentation to the new
livings, the incumbents of the suppressed churches were to keep their
stipends during life, if they agreed to perform service as required. If not,
they were to keep only a third.” The Act was not carried into execution
until January 1584-5, when twenty-nine benefices were united into eleven.”

Holgate founded schools at York, Old Malton, and Hemsworth.”

® Drake, Eboracum, 451. * Thid. 452. ® York Epis. Reg. Holgate, fol. 22 ; Lawton, Co//. 493.
°° Drake, op. cit. 452. 8’ Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), li, 371, 372. See ibid. vol. i, pref. p. xii.
* Ibid. ii, 498. ® Tbid. 390, 391. 7 Ibid. i, pref. pp. xiil, xiv.
™ The church of St. Peter-the-Little was a case in point. Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 245.

™ Add. MSS. 33595, fol. 16 (copy of Act). 8 Tbid. fol. 17.

™ Lawton, op. cit. 39, 527, 199, 200. Holgate seems to have appropriated Beswick chapelry, in
Kilnwick parish, to his school at York (ibid. 351). The rectory of Kilnwick-on-the-Wolds had been appro-
priated to his priory of Watton.

Tosias Mattuew (1606-1 628)

York ARCHIEPISCOPAL Seats—Prate III

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Queen Mary translated Nicholas Heath from Worcester in Pee. ae
received his pall in October, and was enthroned in January 1555-6.% In
the same year he succeeded Gardiner as lord chancellor. Deprivation and
imprisonment had not ruined his tolerant temper, and historians like Fuller
praise his moderation.” The Marian persecution left Yorkshire almost
untouched ; the single burning recorded, that of Richard Snell of Bedale,
took place in the diocese of Chester.” Heath recovered much of the
alienated property of the see and, by a series of exchanges in London, obtained
a site for York House, near Charing Cross.” His tenure of the archbishopric
was brief. He proclaimed Elizabeth, and was one of the two moderators who
presided over the futile theological dispute at Westminster in 1559,” but he
opposed the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, and was deprived on 5 July.
He was imprisoned in 1560, but released in 1563, and was allowed to end
his days in peace.”

At the end of August 1559 the royal visitors began their visitation of
the Yorkshire clergy. The southern and western deaneries were visited first
at Pontefract, Halifax, and Otley. From 6 to g September the commissioners
were at York. They were at Hull and Beverley on 11 and 12 December,
at Malton and Northallerton on the 14th and 15th. On 18 September they
were at Richmond.” From these visitations a large number of clergy were
absent, and incurred the guilt of contumacy.* Some deprivations took place
as an immediate consequence, and several of the clergy deprived under Mary
were restored to their benefices.** Among the clergy whose benefices were
sequestered was the suffragan Bishop of Hull, Robert Pursglove, Archdeacon
of Nottingham and formerly Prior of Guisborough.® Respite was given to the
great majority of the recusants. Meanwhile the sees of the northern province
were left vacant, and the temporalities administered by the council of the
North. In June 1560 William May, Dean of St. Paul’s, an active reformer
and one of the ecclesiastical commissioners of 1559, was nominated to the
archbishopric. He died on the day of his election, and his place was not filled
till February 1560-1, when Thomas Young was translated from St. David’s.
William Downham became Bishop of Chester on 4 May 1561.7 On
5 May a commission was issued to Young, now president of the North, and
other visitors to administer the Oath of Supremacy throughout the province.

*® Drake, op. cit. 453. 7% Fuller, CA. Hist. Brit. bk. vill, sect. ii, § 19.

7 Dixon, Hist. Ch. Engl. iv, 653, gives the name as Sewell. In Cattley’s edition of Foxc, Acts and Mon.
viii, 739, it is Snel. Dixon says that the burning took place at Bedale. Foxe gives the impression that it
took place at Richmond ; and this is borne out by the Richmond parish registers.

® Drake, loc. cit. 79 Tbid. ; Fuller, op. cit. bk. ix, sect. i, § 11.

® Gee, The Elizabethan Clergy and the Settlement of Religion, 1558-64 (1898), 36.

® Ibid. 144, 194, 195. Heath was excommunicated in Feb. 1560-1 for failing to attend church. He
died in 1579.

® Tbid. 77-79, 81. oat

® Dr. Gee (ibid. 83-5) gives the names of absentees in York diocese, and (87, 88) those in Chester
diocese. Some of the place-names given cannot be identified with absolute certainty from the lists. Bishops
Hull (84) is probably one of the Bishophill churches in York ; Wormsley (83) and Fockton (84) should
probably be Womersley and Folkton. The lists are from the commissioners’ report in S.P. Dom. Eliz. x.

™ List of restitutions (ibid. 89), from the same source. ‘The Yorkshire benefices thus filled up witb
Bulmer, Burnsall, Doncaster, Hutton (?), Kirkby in Cleveland, Ripley, Sedbergh, Settrington, Whiston, the
archdeaconry of Richmond, and the mastership of St. Nicholas’ Hospital at Richmond.

® Tbid. 78. ;

*8 Gee (ibid. 165) notes, from one of the Zurich letters, the statement that the revenues of the sees ‘ did
gloriously replenish the Exchequer.’

7 Thid. 166. 8 bid. 167.

yes

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Young set about his work with zeal. If much else was changed, the arch-
bishop still held to his right of visiting Durham diocese, and the Bishop of
Durham was still resolute in resisting him.” In June 1563 Young reported
that the North was quiet, but the nobility, gentry, and clergy were still
to be feared.” A list of ‘recusants which were abroad and bound to
certain places, made probably about August 1562, gives the names of some
of the most formidable clergy. The Bishop of Hull was confined to the
neighbourhood of Ugthorpe ; he is described as ‘very wealthy and stiff in
papistry, and of estimation in the country.’* The number of clergy deprived
in the county between 1559 and Young’s visitation seems to have included,
apart from Archbishop Heath and his suffragan, the Archdeacons of York
and Richmond, six prebendaries of York, five parochial clergy in the arch-
deaconry of York, six in the East Riding, three in Cleveland, and three
in Richmond. To these must be added the Archdeacon of Chester,
rector of Ripley, and the Bishop of Carlisle, rector of Romaldkirk.* Subse-
quent deprivations include three parochialclergy in the West Riding, two
in the East Riding, three in Cleveland, and one in Richmond.™ These
lists are only approximate; the main inference is that the majority of the
contumacious clergy of 1559 eventually took the oath. Dr. Palmes, the
recusant Archdeacon of York, deprived in 1559, was imprisoned in 1561,
and so continued in 1563.”

In 1566-7 Young consecrated Richard Barnes as his suffragan with the
title of Bishop of Nottingham.” The archbishop died in 1568, leaving
behind him a reputation marred by his destruction of the hall of the palace
at York.*7 Some credit must be given to his ability in the difficult task of
conciliating the North. No important rising had taken place since the final
suppression of the Pilgrimage of Grace. In 1548 the dissolution of the
chantries had been followed by an attempted insurrection at Seamer, near
Scarborough. A receiver of chantry lands and three others were murdered.
The ringleaders were executed at York (1549).% In 1569, however, the
Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland headed the Rising of the North.
On 14 November mass was restored at Durham and Ripon; little more than
a month later the rebellion was over. The punishment which followed
fell with excessive severity on the poorer classes. While cowing further
efforts at insurrection, it kept alive that steady recusancy of which later
Yorkshire records afford so many traces.

Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London, was translated to York, June
1570,” and set to work to enforce the statutes of 1559. His injunctions,
issued before visitation, required the destruction of altars, vestments, mass-
books, chalices, and rood-lofts, and the erection, at least in larger churches,

® Cal. S.P. For. Eliz. 1561, p. 135. °° Thid. 226.

* Thid. 1564-5, p. 168.

*'§.P. Dom. Eliz. Add. xi, 45, printed in Gee, op. cit. 179 seq.

* Gee, op. cit. 252 seq. (App. i). “ Tbid. 288 seq. (App. iii).

* Cal. S.P. For. Eliz. 1564-5, p. 168.

* Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Angi. 107.

” Drake, op. cit. 454. It was said that he wanted the lead to buy an estate for his son, but he was
cheated of the profit. The story comes from Sir John Harrington’s appendix to Godwin’s De Praesulibus
aing.tce, and is noticed by Fuller, op. cit. bk. ix, sect. ii, § 14.

* Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), i, pref. p. xvi.

* See Froude, Hist. of Engi. ix, 177 seq. Drake, op. cit. 454.

§2

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

of a reading-desk in the nave for morning and evening prayer." On 16 July
1571 Grindal reported the end of his visitation to the Earl of Leicester.
He complained of the ignorance of the clergy and the smallness of stipends.
‘Oftentymes wher ther are a thowsand or fyftene hundrethe people in a
arishe, there is neyther parson nor vicare, but onlie a stipende of seaven or
eight pounds for a curate.’ No incumbents could be found to take such
livings, which were often served by the curate of the next parish.? These
evils were touched by John Best, Bishop of Carlisle, in a letter to Parker written
in1567. Best begs to be permitted, like his predecessor, to hold Romaldkirk
Church i commendam; in renewing which grant ‘ Your grace shall both stay
_the covetous gripe that hath the advowson for his prey, the unlearned ass
from the cure where I have now a learned preacher, and bind me as I am
otherwise most bound to serve and pray for your grace’s long continuance
in honour and godliness.’* Strype gives an amusing instance of ignorance in
the case of a presentee to Harthill (1574). At his examination he translated
the words vestri humiles et obedientes in his presentation form, by ‘your
humbleness and obedience.’ Asked ‘ Who brought the children of Israel out
of Egypt?’ he answered, ‘King Saul. The question ‘Who was first
circumcised ?’ was beyond him, and he was rejected.* It is noteworthy that
Grindal does not accuse Yorkshire of the dissolute living which his com-
missary found in Lancashire and Cheshire,* but the records of Halifax, at a
somewhat later date, give no favourable picture of the morality of one remote
Yorkshire district.

Grindal’s articles of visitation, and the injunctions issued (1572) to the
Dean and chapter of York, manifest his uncompromising temper.® Strype
remarks on his severity to Papists.’ The disturbed state of the North gave
such severity its excuse, and even when we find royal officers taxing the
scanty pensions of the religious and chantry priests who were still alive, to
provide a subsidy,® we may admit that the taxation provided a means of
controlling funds which might have been employed by agents of rebellion.
Grindal attacked not only adherents of the old faith, but the moderate
interpretation of reformed doctrine, expressing more definitely what Holgate
already had implied, and Young, who, like Grindal himself, had been a
refugee in Germany, had held. Puritanism now placed itself in antithesis to
the old beliefs in a district which hitherto had heard little of subversion of
dogma. The way for further disruption was prepared, and the rift between
the two Anglican parties soon began to show itself. Grindal was translated to
Canterbury in 1576, and Edwin Sandys, Bishop of London, was preferred
to York. Sandys had been a royal commissioner in Yorkshire in 1559.”

' Strype, Life of Grindal (ed. 1831), 247 seq. A large number of rood-lofts were left, and were not
destroyed till the 18th century. Probably it was considered necessary to destroy the beam and figures alone

without touching the loft. 2 Add. MSS. 32091, fol. 242.
* Letters printed in Whitaker, Richmondshire, 1, 137, 138.
* Strype, op. cit. 274. 5 See note 2 above.

® See Ornsby, Dioc. Hist. York, 350, 351. Grindal held a visitation of the dean and chapter in Apr.
1575 Grrype, op. cit. 279).
trype, op. cit. 273.
7.1 M. Fallow, Mines of Yorkshire Ex-religious, 1573,’ Yorks. Arch. Fourn, xix, 100 seq. (from Subs.
R. bdle. 65, no. 349).
° Drake, op. cit. 454. Grindil was translated 15 Feb. ; Sandys was enthroned 13 Mar. 1575-6.
” Report in S.P. Dom. Eliz. x, 1 (in Gee, op. cit. 90).

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Although he had sought refuge with the foreign reformers during the reign
of Mary, his views were those of a cautious Anglican, resenting ‘all such
rude and indigested platformes as have been more lately and boldly then
either learnedly or wisely preferred,’ and the reducing of the Church of
England to ‘the state of a small private church.’"" Sandys had an unfortunate
genius for quarrelling, and he was soon on bad terms with his dean,
Matthew Hutton, whose orders were Genevan. An attempt to visit Durham
officially was resisted by the dean, William Whittingham, another prominent
Genevan divine. In 1578 Whittingham’s proceedings led to the appoint-
ment of a commission consisting, among others, of Sandys, Hutton, and the
Earl of Huntingdon, who, as President of the North, incurred Sandys’ enmity
by coveting Bishopthorpe. The commission met in the chapter-house at
Durham. Sandys broached the subject of Whittingham’s orders. Hutton
took up their defence and an unedifying wrangle followed. The com-
missioners went to dinner. The archbishop neither ate, nor drank, nor
spoke, but after dinner was bitter against Hutton. He apparently dismissed
all dignity in contrasting his own learning with that of the dean, and
sneering at the dean’s preaching as ‘a lytle heapinge upp of doctors and
poets, lytle edifyinge.’ It is littlke wonder that the commission was a
failure.” The quarrel was continued at York ; articles were issued against
the dean ; and eventually Hutton had to make his submission.” Sandys’
want of self-restraint, and irritation at the not ill-founded charge that he
was enriching his family at the expense of the church, led him into counter-
charges against the chapter, and reflexions on the engrossment of
leases by his predecessor. An excellent and pious man, he displayed a
weakness in his public dealings, which on at least one occasion nearly led to
the triumph of baser enemies than Hutton.” He died in 1588 and was
buried at Southwell.’* His immediate successor was John Piers, translated
from Salisbury in 1589, when Dean Hutton became Bishop of Durham. In
1594 Piers died, and Hutton returned to York as archbishop.”

Some idea of the condition of Yorkshire parish churches at this time
may be gained from the visitation returns from the churches within the Dean
of York’s peculiar, between 1568 and 1602.% These churches were Pickering
and Pocklington with their former chapels and Kilham.’® The articles of
inquiry administered to the wardens and ‘fidedigni’ of each parish were
framed on the injunctions of 1559. No return bears witness to any direct
infringement of the Act of Uniformity. The sins of the incumbents are
mainly on the side of omission. At Barnby-on-the-Moor in 1595 there was no

" Will of Archbishop Sandys, quoted by Drake, op. cit. 455.

¥ Add. MS. 33207, fol. 5 seq. Ibid. fol. 13, occurs a document endorsed by Hutton, ‘The Dean of
Duresme’s testimonials concerning my orders at Geneva.’

* Lansd. MS. 50, fol. 78, 79 ; ‘the Speech to be used by the Deane of Yorke.’

“ Sandys to Burghley, ibid. fol. 72, 73, beginning ‘The Deane spitteth out his venome still, and hath
used means to infect the verie Court. There is no end of his malice.’

% Dict. Nat. Biog. 1, 283 seq. © Drake, op. cit. 455.

“ Tbid. 456 seq. For Piers’ ch2racter and virtues see Fuller, op. cit., bk. ix, sect. vili, § 9.

8 Verks. Arch. Tourn, Xvill, 197-232, 313-41.

'* For the ordination and consolidation of these benefices by Gray, see note 5, p. 26. The chapels formed
into vicarages by Gray were these :—From Pickering : Allerston-with-Ebberston, Ellerburn-with-Wilton ; from
Pocklington : Barnby-on-the-Moor-with-Fangfoss, Allerthorpe-with-Thornton, Givendale-with-Miilington,
Hayton-with-Belby, Kiinwick Percy. Goathland was a chapel of Pickering, Yapham-with-Meltonby of
Pocklington.

”

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

homily-book ; the late vicar took it to Fangfoss and left it there. The non-
provision of quarter sermons at Pickering is noted three times. At Ellerburn
in 1596 there were no quarter sermons, but they were provided in 1599.
There was no Bible ‘ of the largest volume’ at Millington in 1570, nor at
Wilton in 1595. The Kilham register was missing in 1602. The dean
was twice presented for not disbursing a fortieth of his living to the poor of
Pickering. He was responsible for the decay of some of the fabrics.”
Pickering, Ebberston, Fangfoss, and Kilham were chronic cases of structural
ruin. In 1594 and 1595 the vicar of Fangfoss was presented for neglecting
service on Wednesdays and Fridays, and occasionally on Sundays and holy-
days: he made no attempt to catechize, when there was no sermon he
omitted to read a homily. At Pocklington in 1601 the vicar had no
communion service at weddings, in 1602 he had no Wednesday or Friday
service, save on Ash Wednesday, and held no catechizing. The vicar of
Pickering in 1602 was said to be careless about wearing a surplice during
service. He was removed in 1615 by the dean, who had been summoned as
ordinary before the Privy Council.” At Allerston in 1594 there was no
curate, and there had been no communion since Easter. At Wilton things
were more satisfactory, although during the earlier visitations the vicar was
presented for neglecting service on Wednesdays and Fridays, and afternoon
service on Sundays and holydays. At a later date things improved, but
morning prayer was said at eight and afternoon prayer at two o’clock, prob-
ably because the vicar was due for similar services at Ellerburn. At Goath-
land in 1601 there was no pulpit. Necessary repairs, chiefly of churchyard
fences, were taken in hand where possible ; but, as at Kilham, where an
assessment for mending the steeple windows was made in 1593, parishioners
were occasionally unwilling to pay their part.”

After the accession of James I more energy was shown in restoring
churches and providing chapels in large parishes. One of the old col-
legiate chapters was revived. Beverley had been dissolved in 1544, when
the clerical staff of the minster was reduced to a vicar and three curates.¥
A commission was appointed in the same year to reform Ripon ; but the
chapter was dissolved under Edward VI. Archbishop Sandys made an
effort to procure its revival; and in 1604 the corporation of Ripon
petitioned Anne of Denmark for its re-foundation. With her aid the
chapter, consisting of a dean and six prebendaries, was revived and endowed
out of the Crown lands.** The archbishop at this time was Tobias Matthew,
translated from Durham on Hutton’s death (1606).% Under his care, some-

* John Thornborough, who succeeded Hutton as dean, held his deanery with the bishoprics of Limerick
(1593-1604) and Bristol (1604-17), resigning it on his translation to Worcester. Although his non-
residence was an evil, he was no exceptional case, and the dilapidation of Ebberston, Fangfoss, and Kilham
had begun long before his time. as

“ Minute of Privy Council ap. Pickering parish register, printed in Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xvill, 200, 201.

* References in Yorks. Arch. Fourn, ut sup. The visitations 1568-94 are printed pp. 209-31 3 1595
(Pocklington, Belby, Fangfoss), p. 232 3 1595 (rest)-1602, pp. 315-41. :

® Lawton, Coll. 319 ; Hiatt, Beverley Minster (1898), 31. ‘The staff was further reduced to a vicar
and one curate temp. Elizabeth. :

* Sandys had a scheme, in which he was encouraged by Burghley and Richard Hooker among others,
for founding a theological college in the Bedern, the common house of the prebendaries’ vicars under the old
régime (Hallett, Cathedral Church of Ripon [1901], 30). .

* J. T. Fowler, Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 257, 258. A fresh charter was granted in 1697, and the
subdeanery erected. % Drake, op. cit. 448.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

thing was done towards subdivision of large parishes in the West Riding.
A chapel was built at Denby in Penistone parish (1627)."*™ Ecclesall
Chapel in Shefheld was restored for service in 1622.% The vicarage
of Halifax had been held since 1593 by Dr. John Favour, who was -
preferred by Matthew to stalls at Ripon, Southwell, and York, and in
1617 to the precentorship of York. Favour’s thirty years’ tenure of
his benefice was remarkable for his efforts to restrain the immorality
and superstition prevalent in his parish." He obtained the restora-
tion of the alienated chapelry of Rastrick: a new chapel was built,
in which ‘ordinarye service was so distinctly done and redd and psalmes
so well tuned and songe . . . it pleasyd Mr. Dr. Favour (to en-
corage the people in weldoinge) to preache there in May 1606.’*
Favour’s religious ideals excluded harshness to Nonconformists.* He set
great store by preaching: on the last Wednesday in every month an
“exercise ’’ was held at Halifax, at which two sermons were preached. These
were noted down in manuscript by Elkanah Wales, afterwards curate of
Pudsey, and his brother; and among those who took part in the exercises
were two Nonconformist lecturers named Boys and Barlow, who were
protected by Favour, with the connivance of the archbishop.™

Matthew, while sharing the zeal of his age against Papist recusants, was
a representative of the moderate Anglican school. He is said to have ‘ died
yearly inreport’; and on one of these false alarms, the importunate Arch-
bishop of Spalato was a disappointed candidate for York. Matthew died
in 1628, at tne age of eighty-two.* His successor, George Montaigne,
Bishop of Durham, died little more than a fortnight after his enthronement.”
Samuel Harsnett, translated from Norwich in 1629, enjoyed the see for only
two years. He belonged to the Laudian school of thought, averse alike
from ‘all modern Popish superstitions, as all novelties of Geneva.’* In

628 Lawton, op. cit. 210. * Ibid. 224.

© For an interesting account of Favour, see W. J. Walker, Chaprers on the Early Registers of Halifax Parish
CA. (1885), 1 seq. See also Fowler, Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 277 seq.

3 The Chantry Commissioners of 1548 estimated the number of houseling people in Halifax, Elland, and
Heptonstall at 8,500 ; Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.) ii, 421.

3° W. J. Walker, op. cit. 27.

83 A book was published by him (1619) in favour of his conception of primitive Christianity. Its title is
curious: Antiguitie triumphing over Noveltie: whereby it is proved that Antiquitie is a true and certaine Note
of the Christian Catholic Church and Verity, against all new and late upstart heresies, advancing themselves
against the religious honour of old Rome, whose ancient faith was so much commended by St. Paul’s pen, and often sealed
with the bleud of many Martyrs and worthy Bishops of that Sea (sic).

* W. J. Walker, op. cit. 36. For Elkanah Wales, see Calamy, Nonconformists’ Mem. (ed. Palmer, 1803),
iii, 444.

> Fuller, op. cit. bk. x, sect. vi, § 9. Spalato left England in 1622 : Neile, afterwards archbishop, is said by
Heylyn (Cyprianus Anglicus [1671 ed.], 103) to have been the author of the pamphlet called Spa/ate’s
Shiftings in Religion. In Harl. MS. 2128, fol. 160, is a receipt for 15s. (26 Feb. 1623-4) from two Greeks,
‘deputed and authorized by the Archbishopp of Dirach, Spate, and Mussak’ to receive money collected for him
in the county by virtue of letters patent. BriefS are mentioned directed to the parishes of Leeds, Gargrave,
Pannal, Keighley, and Water Fryston. Who was this prelate?

Drake, op. cit. 459, who notes Matthew’s activity as a preacher. See Lansdowne MS. 973, fol.
41d. for an account relating to Matthew’s hospitality at Bishopthorpe during the Christmas scasons of 1624
and 1625.

% Drake, ibid. See Dict. Nat. Biog. xxxviii, 277, for the clever but indecorous jest which was said to
have won him the see. Milton, Of Reformation in England (1641), bk. i, has a taunt at ‘old bishop Mountain’
which may have been justified by facts.

§ Drake, op. cit. 461.

°° Will of Archbishop Harsnett, quoted by Drake, ibid. Harsnett’s brass at Chigwell, Essex, represents
him with mitre, cope, rochet, chimere, and pastoral staff.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

his time a chapel was provided at Armley, to serve the needs of that
part of the parish of Leeds. It was built in 1630, but was not con-
secrated till 1674." On Harsnett’s death a fit successor was found in
Richard Neile, Bishop of Winchester. Neile, who apparently little relished
the translation for his own sake, was a faithful partisan of Laud,‘ and
endeavoured to secure strict conformity to Anglican usage. Before
visiting his province in 1633, he issued ninety-seven articles of inquiry
which follow closely in most respects the requirements of 1 559. The first
two concern the repair of the church, vicarage, and churchyard, the profana-
tion of the churchyard, and superstitious bell-ringing on holydays or their
eves. As necessaries for common prayer are named a Bible of the largest
volume ; a prayer book and book of homilies; a convenient pulpit; a
decent seat for the minister to read service in. There should be a chest for
the registers, and a poor man’s box with three locks. The ‘decent table’
should be conveniently placed, with cover of silk or ‘other decent stuffe,’
and a fair linen cloth atcommunion. A silver communion cup with a
cover is required, and ‘a fayre standing pot or two of pewter or purer
metall’ for the wine. The minister should wear in church ‘a comely
surplesse with sleeves’ and a hood: in public, a coat, cassock, or cloak
over doublet and hose; light-coloured clothes and stockings should be
avoided. Prayer should be said or sung every Sunday and holyday, and
on eves ; the litany on Wednesdays and Fridays. Care is to be taken to instruct
children on Sundays before evening prayer. Excommunicated persons are to be
denounced every six months. Communicants must receive the sacrament
kneeling. The wardens should be admonished, after the second lesson at
morning and evening prayer, to look after absentees from church: they are
to walk out of church during service, to see who are abroad in any ale-
house or elsewhere. Other articles concern pluralities, lack of curates in
parishes, and licences to preach. Unlicensed lectures and exercises, public
fasts not appointed by authority, and unauthorized exorcisms are also to be
reported.“

These inquiries point to a desire for decency and reverence, without
prescribing any very advanced standard of ritual. eile, like Laud, regarded
Popery and Nonconformity as the Scylla and Charybdis of Church and State,
and his articles inquire strictly into any suspicion of Popery or Papist
parishioners.“ His certificate of this visitation refers chiefly to the dioceses
of Chester and Carlisle.© In January 1636-7 he sent in a certificate of
visitation for his own diocese. He comments on his clemency to ‘un-
conformable ministers’: while holding himself ‘bound in conscience and

duty to God, his Majesty, and the most happy established church’ to oppose

*-l Lawton, op. cit. 93 (wrong date of consecration).

Heylyn, Cyprianus Angl.214. ‘Neile’s known sufficiencies had pointed him unto the place, but he was
warm at Winton, and perhaps might not be perswaded to move toward the North, from whence he came not
long before with so great contentment.’ Neile had been Bishop of Durham 1617-28.

* Ibid. 165.

“ Articles to be Inquired of, in the Metropoliticall Visitation, &c. 1633. London, 1633 5 16 Pp-

Ibid. ; article 14 (pt. ii, no. 5) relates to unbaptized children in the parish, or children suspected a
papist christening ; article 20 (ibid. no. 11) asks for information as to popish priests in the parish ; and article
21 (ibid, no. 12) asks whether the clergyman of the parish is suspected of popish inclinations.

3 57 8

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Puritanism, he has never yet deprived a Puritan minister.” Meanwhile, the
work of church extension in the diocese had gone on. Neile reports that
four new chapels had been built during 1636. These were probably
Wibsey in Bradford parish, Hunslet in Leeds, Attercliffe in Shefheld, which
were all consecrated by the Bishop of Sodor and Man in this year,“ and
Harwood Dale in Hackness.* Halton Gill Chapel, in Arncliffe, was rebuilt in
the same year. On 21 September 1634 the archbishop had consecrated
St. John’s Chapel at Leeds, which had been founded by a local layman named
John Harrison. Neile demurred to the vesting of the patronage in the
corporation and vicar of Leeds, and insisted that, if the choice of the curate
were not left to the archbishop, the vicar should have the right of vetoing an
unsuitable appointment. He thought the chapel was too near the parish
church, and that there might be a danger of rival pulpits.” The curate,
Robert Todd, was a Puritan, ‘a great textuary, and a very scriptural preacher.’
At the consecration the sermon was preached by John Cosin, then Archdeacon
of the East Riding, on the text ‘ Let all things be done decently and in order.’
In the afternoon Todd, expounding the words of the catechism, ‘ Yea,
verily, and by God’s help so I will,’ was suspected of attempting to confute
Cosin, and was deprived for twelve months. The fabric and fittings of
St. John’s still remind us of a most interesting period in English church
architecture and ritual. When Charles I visited York in May 1633 he
commented severely on the state of the minster, and ordered the mean houses
which blocked the west and south fronts, and a house which was actually
built up inside the transept, to be taken down. The quire was much
blocked by seats for women of quality. These were to be removed and
replaced by movable benches. A seat for the Lord President’s wife was to be
made beyond the stalls on the north side ; and a seat for the council might be
left before the throne, where the president sat with the archbishop. The
admission of the laity to the stalls led to disputes for precedency, and Charles’s
anxiety on this point is justified by a dispute which arose in the same year
between the lord mayor and the chapter, the lord mayor claiming the right
tosit in the stall of the Archdeacon of York.®

Neile’s efforts for conformity were much hampered by the colony of
Frenchmen and Dutchmen who were carrying out the drainage of Hatfield
Chase. Sir Philibert Vernatti, their employer, allowed them to use a barn for
their services. Their discipline was Presbyterian: they baptized in a dish,
and received the sacrament sitting. Bishop Williams of Lincoln gave them
his approval ; and they prepared to build a church across the Lincolnshire

“ Cal. 8.P. Dom. 1636-7, p. 409. Cf. note 53 below. Neile instances the case of a ‘poor, mel-
ancholic, brainsick, unconformable man,’ whom he had treated with consideration.

‘8 Ibid. “ Lawton, op. cit. 116, 96, 223.

*° Ibid. 302. 5) Ibid. 245.

** Copy of letter, Lansdowne MS. 973, fol. 32 d. (Bishopthorpe, 1 Sept. 1634).

8 Calamy, Nonconf. Mem. iii, 439, 440. Todd had previously served cures at Swinefleet, Whitgift, and
Ledsham. John Shaw, appointed lecturer at All Saints’, Pavement, 1637-40, by the Puritan party in York
corporation, came under Neile’s displeasure : see Yorkshire Diaries (Surt. Soc.), 129 seq. for some side-lights
on Neile’s attitude towards Puritanism. The strongly partisan feeling of the writer detracts from their
value.

* Lansdowne MS. 973, fol. 56d.-58 d.: copy of letter ap. S.P. Dom. Chas. I, cccxxxix, 56.

* Lansdowne MS. 973, fol. 58d.—sgd. In Add. MSS. 33595, fol. 19 seq. is an inspeximus
(11 June 1526) of ‘a decree for precedency of place betwene the citizens of Yorke and them of the spiritual
court,’ made by Bowet in 1411.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

rder. Neile refused them countenance unless they conformed, forbade
rsons in his diocese to attend their service, and complained to the kin
-ough Laud of these strangers ‘that take the bread out of the mouths of
iglish subjects by overbidding them in rents of land, and doing more work
‘a groat than an Englishman can do for sixpence.’* For a time he placed
sinterdict upon them. Their minister departed ; the materials for their
apel were sold,” and they went to the parish church, where they behaved
voutly. Neile begs Laud to procure copies of the prayer-book in French
d Dutch for them. Somewhat later they obtained liberty of worship, and
lt their chapel at Sandtoft in Lincolnshire. Neile has been blamed for
rrow insistence on conformity, and for unwillingness to license chaplains in
ivate families. He told Laud, however, that he was ready to tolerate such
rates at poor stipends, provided that they kept to the prayer-book at family
ayers.” The danger lay, not merely in the possible foundation of Puritan
nventicles, but also in the risk of affording shelter to seminary priests.
Since the penal statutes of Elizabeth’s reign, the main attention of the
iritual and secular authorities had been directed to Papist recusants. The
stices were active against suspected priests. In 1591, for example, a priest
med Robert Thorpe was taken, early in the morning of Palm Sunday, by
justice and a posse of constables, at a house in Menethorpe, where he was
pposed to be going to say mass. He and his host were dragged out
their beds and hanged at York Castle on 31 May." Few parishes in
e county failed to contribute their share of recusants and non-churchgoers
quarter sessions and assizes. The district round Bubwith and certain
aces in Holderness show the largest number of returns in the East Riding.”
he list of 1604, for Craven, contains the well-known names of Tempest
Broughton and Pudsay of Bolton-by-Bowland, but is unexpectedly small.”
ists of the later part of the 17th century contain several entries from
‘dbergh, Broughton, Ingleton, Austwick in Clapham parish, and other
aces in Staincliffe and Ewcross wapentakes.* | Round Masham and Kirkby
[alzeard, and in Wensleydale and Swaledale, Papists were numerous.”
anwick St. John in Teesdale, and the whole neighbourhood of Barnard
astle, generally returned a large number. One hundred and seven recusants
e mentioned in Stanwick parish in 1604: from the hamlet of Aldbrough
one, sixty were presented at Richmond quarter sessions in January 167 3-4."
he chief families of the district were strongly Romanist : Rokeby, Wycliffe,
irlington, Catherick, Metham, Metcalfe, Gascoigne, Tunstall, Pudsay, and

*S§.P. Dom. Chas. I, cccxxxvii, 47. 57 Reference as note 47 above.

*® §.P. Dom. Chas. I, cccxxxi, 71. ® Ornsby, Disc. Hist. York, 376.

© See note 47 above, p. 58. Ornsby, op. cit. 381, refers to Neile’s refusal to consecrate Sir Henry
ngsby’s private chapel at Red House, in Moor Monkton parish (see also Yorkshire Diaries [Surt. Soc.], 421).

VE, Peacock, .4 List of the Roman Catholics in the County of York in 1604 (Bodl. Lib. MS. Rawlinson
452), 124 n.

* Ibid. 134. (Bubwith), 122-129 (Holderness).

® Tbid. 17-22.

See Depositions from the Castle of York, 17th cent. (Surt. Soc. xl), 133 (25 March 1664), 138, 139,
tarch 1665-6) 167, 168 (6 July 1669), 182 (8 July 1670). ;

% Peacock’s list, op. cit. 73 seq., contains names of forty recusants and thirty-four eae
ants from Masham, 106 non-communicants from Kirkby Malzeard (36 seq-), thirty-eight recusants an
mnty-four non-communicants from Grinton-in-Swaledale (67 seq.).

“Ibid. pp. 81, 82.

* Quarter Sess. Rec.(N. R. Rec. Soc.), vi, 195 seq.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Meynell are names which recur in various lists. Another district in which
large presentations were normal was the neighbourhood of Hovingham ;
Hovingham and its hamlets and Brandsby were seldom without their quota.
Places like Thornton-le-Street varied considerably in numbers.” Cleveland,
however, abounded in recusants, Stokesley, Guisborough, Crathorne, Brotton,
Skinningrove and Egton, presenting numbers which suggest the stimulating
effect of persecution. Fifty-five are named at Egton in 1604”: at the
quarter sessions of July 1614, 137 were presented”; in April 1674 the
number had risen to 227, while 113 were reported from Lythe.” The
Cleveland recusants were principally of the poorer classes, fishermen and
labourers from Brotton and Skinningrove, tradesmen and labourers from
Egton, pewterers and other tradesmen from Stokesley. Propagandists were
not wanting: men and women are noted as dangerous seducers from Ug-
thorpe, Yarm, Newland near Hull, and other places.* Companies of players,
apprehended under the Vagrancy Act, were suspected of popish tendencies ;
one of these, consisting of labourers, weavers, and others, was presented at
Helmsley in January 1615-16, with various gentlemen and farmers who had
given them entertainment in Cleveland and on the Richmondshire border.”
£1,100 in fines were levied at Malton in October 1625 from gentlemen
suspected of harbouring recusants; £1,300 in the following October at
Richmond.” Earlier in October 1626 large sums were levied in the same
way, and letters from the king and Archbishop Abbot were read, asking
Archbishop Matthew and his suffragans for returns of Papists in the diocese
and province.” Under Matthew’s rule no year is without its long list of
recusants, non-churchgoers, and suspected marriages and baptisms.

Neile’s successor at York (1641) was a man of very different
sympathies, John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln. The enforcers of conformity
were now themselves to feel the pressure of intolerance. The resident
Yorkshire clergy, at the time of the Civil War, seem to have been pious and
industrious. Pluralism was still a crying evil; and vicars and curates in
many places felt the sting of poverty. Cosin held his archdeaconry with the
deanery of Peterborough, a prebend at Durham, the rectory of Brancepeth,
and the mastership of Peterhouse.” John Neile, nephew of the archbishop,
was Archdeacon of Cleveland, prebendary of North Newbald, and rector of
Beeford in Holderness, and held stalls at Southwell and Durham.” Williams,
while at Oxford with Charles I, preferred a Welshman, vicar of Ruabon, to
a stall at York.” We can hardly expect to find pluralism unaccompanied by

® Quarter Sess. Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.), iii, 174 seq. (1 Oct. 1623; long list from Brandsby) ; 207
seq. (30 Sept. 1624, Brandsby, Hovingham, &c.) ; 293 (2 Oct. 1627, Brandsby) ; 338 seq. (3 Oct.
1632, Brandsby, Hovingham), &c. &c.

® Fair lists from Thornton-le-Street occur ibid. iti, 192 (7 Oct. 1623) ; and 247 seq. (12 Oct. 1625;
specified from North Kilvington), fifty-nine were presented 20 Jan. 1673-4 (ibid. vi, 195 seq.), when sixty
were presented from Aldbrough in Stanwick (as note 67 above), and sixty from Eryholme.

” Peacock, op. cit. 97-100.

™ Quarter Sess. Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.), i, 63-5.

™ Ibid. vi, 204 seq. Ugthorpe, to the neighbourhood of which we have seen Bishop Pursglove
confined, is in Lythe parish.

* Peacock, op. cit. 109, 104, 137. The seducers at Ugthorpe and Newland were women. At

Melsonby (ibid. $7) is mentioned ‘Marke a milner.... . a great persuader of the people to recusancie.’
Quarter Sess. Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.), ii, 110, 111. ™ Ibid. iii, 241, 276, 277.
% Thid. 270-72. 7 Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy (1714), pt. ii, 58.
*§ Thid. ii, 83. * Ibid. 84.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

er evils. An official of the Archdeacon of Cleveland was accused (1618)
several counts of petty extortions, worthy of Chaucer’s < sompnour.’® In
(3 the curate of Skelton was presented at Thirsk for keeping an ale-house.®
e vicar of Brompton-in-Pickering-Lythe was fined (1626) for extorting
vorial fee, and again in 1627." In 1641 Christopher Fisher, clerk, of
ld Kirby, was sent to York Castle for reviling Mr. Tankard, who, he
i, was ‘ more fitter for a swineherd than a Justice of the peace.’ Fisher
cured soldiers to rescue him on his way to prison.” Brawlings in
irches and churchyards were generally due to the insubordinate laity,
| may in some cases be traced to the more noisy recusants.** Walker’s list
the clergy deprived by the committees for removing scandalous ministers
| for plundered ministers is probably far from complete: the greater
nber included, apart from members of chapters, belonged to well-known
ces in the West Riding, while Richmondshire and Cleveland are practically
represented. In 1643 Henry Robinson, vicar of Leeds, Puritan in
igion but Royalist in politics, had to flee for safety, and wandered about

country seeking refuge with the royalist garrisons and with com-
sionate patrons, but not escaping imprisonment. Thornton, rector of
‘kin, was dragged to Cawood Castle at a horse’s tail. After the
ispiracy of Pontefract, Beaumont, vicar of South Kirkby, was executed.”
e vicar of Kirkburton was dragged over the dead body of his wife by
- murderers. Dr. Bradley was turned out of his rectories of Castleford
1 Ackworth ; his library was surrendered by a man to whom he had
rusted it.* Mr. Blakestan of Northallerton was expelled by the intruding
nister in the middle of service.° A few deprived clergymen obtained
all livings, where they remained in poverty and comparative peace.”
t in other cases where respite was allowed expulsion came. Dr. Kay
Rothwell was driven out of Wragby Church, where the owner of
ystell Priory had connived at his preaching.” Edward Dodsworth was
ned out of Badsworth as late as 1655.% In one case at least, depriva-
n was incurred on the most frivolous grounds. ‘The vicar of Darrington
s informed against for addressing God in terms borrowed from the Book
Common Prayer, and was imprisoned till his fine was paid. The words
re ‘Almighty God, our heavenly Father,’ and the opening words of the
rd’s Prayer.™

Presbyterian discipline was established at Yorkin 1644. Four ministers,
intained by the State, divided their services between the minster and All

© Quarter Sess. Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.), ii, 171, 172, 173,201. On p.172 this official, by an oversight,
wently on the part of the justices’ clerk, is called ‘Archdeacon of Cleveland.’

*) Thid. ii, 16. * Ibid. ili, 270, 289.

8 Tbid. iv, 204, 205. cat ;

4 See Quarter Sess. Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.), iii, 311, for a disturbance at Whitby in 1631, and iv, 52, for a
raceful sacrilege at Raskelf in 1641. ;

® Walker, op. cit. ii, 349. * Ibid. 385. ; —

@ Ibid. 212. Lawton, op. cit. 229, says that he was shot. A different account of his death is given
the author of the journal of the Third siege of Pontefract Castle (Surt. Soc. xxxvil), 105.

8 J. Walker, op. cit. ii, 408. ® Tbid. 85. .

Ibid. 212. The intruder invaded the pulpit and made ‘a long prayer and longer sermon.

1 e.g. William Bridges, curate of Barwick-in-Elmet (ibid. 413), who got the living of Saxton, worth
- {10 a year, and lived with great difficulty and the aid of charity. He was threatened with death by
iers for using the prayer-book at Saxton.

® Ibid. son: %® Ibid. 234. Thid. 408.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Saints’, Pavement, the church in which the citizens took the Solemn League
and Covenant. Edward Bowles, the chief of these, preached and expounded
scripture every Sunday, and took his part in week-day lectures and expositions.”
Dr. Edward Richardson took the place of dean and chapter at Ripon.”
A committee of ministers sat weekly in the chapter-house at York, to
supersede ‘ ignorant and scandalous’ ministers.” Little wilful damage was
done to the fabrics of Yorkshire churches during the Commonwealth period,
though much harm had been done in places directly affected by the war, for
which both parties were responsible. St. Nicholas’s Church at York was
totally ruined,” and St. Olave’s greatly damaged.” Irreparable injury was
done to Pontefract Church.” The glass of the east window at Ripon
was destroyed by Parliamentary soldiers in 1643." But in time of peace
every precaution was taken to keep churches in repair. The parliamentary
surveyors carefully noted examples of decayed fabrics.” Impropriators and
churchwardens were presented continually at quarter sessions for neglecting
to attend to the buildings.’ It is true that the recommendations of the
parliamentary survey for re-modelling boundaries and creating new parishes
included the demolition of superfluous churches and chapels.* An order was
made for the removal and rebuilding of Adel Church in a more central
position, which the parishioners were ready to carry out at their own
expense.’ Schemes for subdividing large parishes anticipated much that has
taken place in recent times. Five new parishes were recommended to be
made in the chapelries of Leeds,® eight in Halifax,” four in Ecclesfield® and
Snaith,® three in Almondbury,” two in Birstal, Braithwell,” Bradford,’
Darfield,'* Huddersfield,!® Sheffield,’® and Silkstone.” Parish churches were

% Calamy, op. cit. ili, 455, 456. See note in Yorkshire Diaries (Surt. Soc.), 157. Bowles exercised
great political influence in York, and was said to be ‘ The spring that moved all the wheels’ within the city.

% J. Walker, op. cit. ii, 89 ; Calamy, op. cit. ili, 445, 446; cf Lawton, op. cit. 539.

” Yorkshire Diaries (Surt. Soc.), 140. Shaw was secretary to the committee, and burned their minutes
at the Restoration.

* Lawton, op. cit. 21. ® Ibid. 33.

Ibid. (Parl. Surv. xviii, 393), 146. St. Giles’s chapel in the market-place became the parish
church in 1778 (149). ‘The eastern arm of Scarborough Church was ruined by royalist fire from the
neighbouring castle.

' Hallett, Cathedral Church of Ripon (1901), 34.

* See their reports, e.g. on Howden (Lawton, op. cit. 296), Withernsea (385), and Gisburn (255).

*See Quarter Sess. Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.) v, 117 (Wigginton), 119, 120 (Kirkby Moorside, both
5 Oct. 1652) ; presentations of parishioners for refusing to pay assessments towards repair, ibid. 195 (Thirsk,
2 Oct. 1665), 204 (Hutton Rudby, 17 Jan. 1655-6), 251 (Sowerby, 6 Oct. 1657).

“e.g. Thorp Arch (Lawton, op. cit. 81), Over Poppleton (71). At York (33) the commissioners recom-
mended the union of St. Olave’s and St. Helen’s Stonegate with St. Michael’s-le-Belfry, ‘and the materials of
the same churches may be disposed of, as the lord mayor and aldermen . . . shall think most convenient, for
the public use of the said city in reference to church maintenance.’

* Lawton, op. cit. 84.

* Viz. St. John’s, Leeds ; Beeston; Farnley, with Armley, Bramley, and Wortley ; Holbeck; Hunslet (ibid.
89,93, 95, 96).

” Coley with Lightcliffe ; Cross Stone with Heptonstall ; Elland with Rastrick ; Sowerby; Illingworth;
Luddenden ; Ripponden (ibid. 128 seq.).

* Bolsterstone ; Bradfield ; Midhope ; Stannington (ibid. 189 seq.)

* Carlton in Balne ; Heck, with Hensall, Balne, and part of Whitley ; Hook, with Airmyn and Goole ;
Rawcliffe (ibid. 155 seq.).

” Honley ; Marsden ; Meltham (ibid. 106, 107).

" Cleckheaton, with Hunsworth and Wyke ; Tong (ibid. 111, 112).

” Bramley ; Hellaby with Woodlaiths (ibid. 177).

8 Haworth ; Wibsey (ibid. 114, 116). ™ Wombwell ; Worsborough (ibid. 182).
8 Scammonden : Slaithwaite (ibid. 139). ra
6 Attercliffe ; Ecclesall (ibid. 223, 224). 7 Barnsley ; Cawthorne (ibid. 226, 228),

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

to be built where they were needed.'® The chapel of Meltham was con-
secrated in 1651 by Bishop Tilson of Elphin™; and chapels were built
at Rawdon, in Guiseley parish (165 3),”° East Hardwick, in Pontefract (Tog 3),™
Bramhope, in Otley,” and Stannington, in Ecclesfield.”

The new order of things, however, did not make for religious peace.
Two ‘able and painful’ ministers were contending about 1650 for the
church of Arksey, one pleading the authority of the Great Seal, the other that
of the Committee for Plundered Ministers.2* In 1645 John Shaw was
appointed lecturer at Trinity Church in Hull, and fell out with the vicar,
Mr. Styles, over the privilege of preaching on Sunday mornings. A further
dispute arose over the mastership of the Charterhouse at Hull.” Styles was
deprived of his living and the mastership for demurring to the execution
of the king.** Shaw succeeded him in the mastership ; but his claim to the
benefice was disputed by the governor’s candidate, John Canne. Each dispu-
tant disparaged the other with some heat, and Canne in particular accused
Shaw of corruption in municipal politics.” A new minister of Hull was
appointed ; Shaw continued to be lecturer, while Canne was allowed to
preach to the garrison in the chancel of Holy Trinity. A wall was built to
shut off the chancel; and Shaw attracted large congregations in the nave.”
He tells us that his exclusion of profane persons and ‘dangerous seducers’
from the communion caused much opposition and persecution,” and that he
‘found Hull, like Jeremy’s figgs, the good very good, and the bad very bad.’®

The Yorkshire Puritan clergy were not wanting in ability, zeal, and
scholarship. The parliamentary survey, however, notes depreciatingly of the
minister of Driffield that he ‘preaches at both churches of Great Driffield
and Little Driffield after his fashion.’ At Walton, near Wetherby, it found
the minister ‘a man of evil life and conversation, who preacheth not above
four times in the year, and he frequently useth the book of Common
Prayer.’ The parson of a mediety of High Hoyland was guilty of the
same practice.* Royalist clergy gave some trouble. In 1651 Edward
Mainwaring, of Sowerby, near Thirsk, was presented at Malton for marrying
people privately and using the Prayer Book. About the same time Robert
Ashton was charged with bastardy at York Assizes. This eccentric person,
a native of Askew, near Lastingham, had been banished from county Durham,
and settled at Leeming, where he practised physic without licence, and was
accused of keeping a disorderly ale-house with a bowling-alley and butts.

%e.9. churches were recommended at Heck (note 9), Hellaby (note 12), and Stannington (note 8).
The building of Stannington chapel was probably the practical outcome of this scheme.

® Lawton, op. cit. 107.

* Ibid. 86. ‘The chapel was consecrated by Archbishop Dolben.

7 Lawton, p. 151 (Charity Com. Rep. xii, 646).

” Lawton, op. cit. 99.

* Ibid. 191 ; Hunter, Hallamshire (ed. Gatty), 4.68, gives date as 1652 or 1653.

* Lawton, op. cit. 171 (Parl. Surv. xviii, 490).

* Yorkshire Diaries (Surt. Soc.), 424, 425 (App.). Shaw had been Vicar of Rotherham and afterwards
lecturer at All Saints’, Pavement, York (see note 53 above, p. 58). ; ie

* Ibid. 425. The deprivation took place early in 1651, J. Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy, pt. ii,
371, says ‘about 1647,’ and says that Styles was subsequently offered the vicarage of Leeds.

” Yorkshire Diaries (Surt. Soc.), 428 ; ibid. 143, 144 note in App. ibid. 422, 423. Canne had been
pastor of the Brownists in Amsterdam.

. ia 144.0 i oe a: 390 Tbid. 141, 142.
awton, op. cit. 295. id. 81.
3 Thid. a o * Quarter Sess. Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.), v, 97.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

With these irregularities he combined the practice of reading Common
Prayer in his house, calling people together with a bell, preached and read
prayers in Leeming Chapel, and healed the king’s evil on the 3oth of every
month, dressed in a long white garment.® Ashton was fined £80 in October
1651, and {12 for practising physic contrary to law, and was to be kept in
York Castle until he entered on a bond for £200, with sureties bound in
£150 each.* A clergyman at Pocklington prayed publicly before his
sermon for Charles II.%7 Lay Royalists disturbed congregations. In 1650 a
man brought ‘a pockitt dagger with two large knives’ to Fishlake Church,
and boasted that he ‘ hoped to doe his King more service therewith than any
Cropp did the Parliament with his longe sword.’ At Little Ouseburn a
Royalist named Watters came into church one Sunday, passed by his own
pew, and climbed into that of a Roundhead gentleman over the locked door,
so that the constable had to sit in the pew all sermon time.” Suspicious
persons were arrested near Malton, and charged with being seminary priests.”
A man was charged at Malton in 1651 for keeping crucifixes in his house
without acquainting the justices ;* and in 1656 an order was made for the
public burning of popish articles, confiscated by a body of searchers, in the
market-place at New Malton.”

The most severe menace to the new order of things, however, came from
the new sect of Quakers. ‘The truth,’ says George Fox, ‘sprang up . . . to
us, so as to be a people to the Lord . . . in Yorkshire in 1651.’* In that
year Fox, preaching at Balby, convinced two of his chief lieutenants, William
Dewsbury and Richard Farnsworth.* Fox travelled into the East Riding,
meeting with encouragement from leading Puritan laymen. His appearance
at Beverley Minster gave rise to the report that an angel or spirit had spoken
in the church.* A minister near Hutton Cranswick, ‘a great high-priest,
called a doctor,’ was preaching on Isaiah lv, 1, when Fox cried out to him,
‘Come down, thou deceiver, dost thou bid people come freely, and take of
the water of life freely, and yet thou takest {300 a year of them for
preaching the scriptures to them?’* From York, where he attempted
to controvert ‘priest Bowles,’ and was thrown out of the minster, Fox
journeyed into Cleveland. A large meeting of Friends was started at
Borrowby.*” He was opposed by parish ministers and by the Cleveland
ranters, but ‘the Lord’s everlasting power was over the world, and
reached to the hearts of people, and made both priests and professors tremble

. so that it was a dreadful thing to them, when it was told them, ‘ The
man in leathern breeches is come.’ * He was sometimes offered the use of

°° Depositions from the Castle of York (Surt. Soc.), 36 seq.

*© Quarter Sess. Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.), v, 88 : see also pp. 61 seq., 85. Ashton apparently was not in
holy orders.

* Depositions from the Castle of York (Surt. Soc.), 24. See also pp. 9, 10, for the refractory conduct
of Mr. Dunwell in administering baptism at St. Mary’s Bishophill Senior (1647).

8 Ibid. 31. *® Ibid. 62, 63. “ Ibid. 44 seq.

" Ibid. 98. “ Thid. 220, 221.

“8 George Fox, Journal (3rd ed. 1765), 662.

“ Thid. 49 : see also J. W. Rowntree, Essays and Addresses (ed. Joshua Rowntree, 1905), 1 seq. for three
valuable chapters on ‘The Rise of Quakerism in Yorkshire,’ with notices of early Friends, and an illustrative
mrp. Dewsbury followed up Fox’s work in the North and East Ridings, and convinced Thomas Thompson
of Skipsea, a famous East Riding preacher.

“© Fox, op. cit. 50. “ Tbid. $1. “ Tbid. §2.

“Ibid. 52-55. He tells us that the ranters € took tobacco, and tasted ale in their meetings.’

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

: pulpits which the priests lolled in’; * and found a friend in Mr. Boys,
minister of Goathland, who accompanied him in his wanderings through
moors. At one place Fox felt moved ‘to famish’ his congregation
m words,’ and sat in silence on a haystack for some hours, while Boys
orted them to wait until his lips were loosed.” In 1652 Fox was arrested
- Patrington, but set at liberty, and was mobbed at Tickhill, where the
sh clerk struck him in the face with the Bible.” He travelled through
kefield and Bradford into Craven, and by way of Pendle Hill, from the
of which the Lord let him ‘see in what places he had a great people to
yathered,’** to Sedbergh and the dales. Here he had a vision of ‘a great
ple in white raiment by a river-side, coming to the Lord.’ After
iching in the dales, he went into Westmorland and Lancashire.” Between
‘4 and 1680 Fox paid nine visits to different parts of Yorkshire.” From
ieeting at Synderhill Green, near Halifax (1654), sixty ministers were sent
vork in other parts of England.” Near Skipton (1660) a meeting of male
2nds was called to provide for persecuted Friends at home and Friends
ond sea. In 1665 Fox was removed from his prison at Lancaster to
rborough Castle, where his room lay open to the sea, ‘so that the
er came over my bed, and ran about the room, that I was fain to
n it up with a platter.’® Imprisonment only kindled his zeal; and in
‘7, arriving at York from a winter journey in the dales, he cries, ‘I am
my holy element, and holy work in the Lord; glory to His name for
ea

The spiritual activity begun by Fox spread with remarkable quickness.
ies Naylor, convinced at Wakefield in 1651, was a victim to that exalta-
1 of spirit which to Fox himself was strength, and lost himself in spiritual
je." Of Fox’s chief Yorkshire helpers, William Dewsbury spent nineteen
rs in prison ; Thomas Tayler of Skipton spent ten years in Stafford gaol,
.months in other prisons ; Thomas Aldam of Warmsworth was in York
itle for two years and a half.” Early Quaker enthusiasm was marked by
meeting at Malton in 1653, attended by 200 persons, which lasted
more than three days, and included a bonfire of vanities.® Fox’s
thods of plain speech were imitated all over Yorkshire. A woman was
'd £200 (1652) for calling to the minister of Selby during sermon, ‘Come
vn, come down, thou painted beast, come down.’ John Pickering of
imbe (1654) disputed about tithes with his minister, refusing to pay for
maintenance of one who prayed in his ‘ Babylon pulpit against us humble
its, and referring to the Protector as ‘the beast who is fallen from his

Fox, op. cit. 56. “Ibid. 57, 58. 5! Tbid. 60.
* Tid. 63. ® Ibid. 66. 57 ow thia, t Thid. 67-0.

Ibid. 114 seq. (1654); 265 (1657); 299 seq. (1660); 350 (1663, a passing visit to N. W.
shire and Sedbergh) ; 377 seq. (1665-6) ; 392 (1666, short visit to Cleveland) ; 404 seq. (1669) ;
seq. (1677) 5 541 (1679-80). 7 Thid. 114.

Ibid. 300, 301. Cf. J. W. Rowntree, op. cit. and Isabel M. Hall, ‘An Extinct Monthly Meeting’
tsk), Friends’ Quarterly Examiner (July 1903), 354.

* Fox, op. cit. 378, 379. © Ibid. 497.

* Ibid. 49 ; see Rowntree, op. cit., for short biographical notice.

= Rowntree, op. cit. Fox mentions Aldam’s imprisonment, op. cit. 63. Thomas Thompson (see note 44
2) was in York Castle for nine years for refusing to go to church or pay for the repair of Skipsea
ple-house” (Rowntree, op. cit. 24).

® Rowntree, op. cit. 17.

“ Depositions from the Castle of York (Surt. Soc.), 54.

3 65 9

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

first principles.’** Service at Little Ouseburn was interrupted by Christopher
Bramley, who said to the minister ‘ Thou art going into the throne of pride,’
and disturbed the sermon by protesting against the application of the text,
‘Thy word is a lantern unto my feet,’ to the Bible. He was expelled from
church, but thrust a paper ‘containing much scandalous and reviling matter’
through the keyhole.* There can be little doubt that, in enthusiasm for the
inward light, denunciation of a paid ministry, and their protest against idolatry
of the letter of Scripture,” some early Quakers drifted into antinomianism. A
Westmorland man and woman, apprehended at Beverley (1653) for posting
papers on the market-cross, gave answers which indicate that they held
doctrines akin to those of the ‘ family of love.’ A wandering prophetess
named Jane disturbed the peace of New Malton in 1652, holding meetings
at night which attracted the wives, and caused anxiety to the husbands of the
town. One man who came to look after his wife was thrown downstairs ;
and the deposition of a youth who went for a walk with Jane in the wolds,
and was given a drug by her to cast out an evil spirit, justifies the suspicion
with which irregular apostles were regarded.” But the new enthusiasm, in
its genuine forms, gave its converts courage to endure persecution. There
were a thousand Quakers in English prisons in 1656: six years later the
number was more than quadrupled.” Presentations before justices for
‘unlawful assembly under the colour of religious worship’ became increas-
ingly common.” Five monthly meetings existed in Yorkshire in 1665: in
1669 the number was increased to fourteen.” Between 1677 and 1716, 149
particular meetings are known in the North and East Ridings.” After the Act
of Toleration (1689) the North Riding justices licensed over eighty meeting-
houses ;7* while 100 were licensed in the West Riding. Friends continued
to bear ‘ faithful and Christian testimony against receiving and paying Tithes,
Priests’ Demands, and those called Church Rates’ ;” and imprisonment in
consequence was not unknown.” But the 18th-century Quakers of Yorkshire
were a respected and well-to-do body, exclusive in their discipline, earnest in
promoting education, and occasionally incurring unpopularity, when one of
them would not sacrifice his principles to take part in public rejoicings.”
The Methodist movement thinned their ranks ; and in 1758 the number of
particular meetings had shrunk to seventy.” Ata later time an old Quaker said

°° Depositions from the Castle of York (Surt. Soc.), 65, 66. 6 Ibid. 71, 72 (28 Mar. 1655).
*" See ibid. 72, 73, note : a woman interrupted a sermon at Tadcaster, saying that the B.b'e ‘ was not the
Word of God, but only a dead letter.’ % Thid. 163, 164.

* Ibid. 55 seq. One is loath to connect this half-witted impostress with the Quakers; but her
meetings were held in the house of a noted Friend, Roger Hebden, a Malton draper. The great Malton
meeting, however (see note 63 above), did not take place till a year later. Hebden gave up his shop
to enter the Quaker ministry, and died in 1695. His Plain Account of Christian Experiences was published in
1700 (Rowntree, op. cit. 18-21). 7 Rowntree, op. cit. (chron. app.).

™ See, e.g. Quarter Sess. Rec. (N.R. Rec. Soc.), vi, 56, 79, 151.

"7 Rowntree, op. cit. ; Fox, op. cit. 404, 405, from which it appears that between 1665 and 1669
the five monthly meetings had grown to seven. The fourteen meetings were: York, Guisborough, Malton,
Richmond, Scarborough and Whitby, Thirsk, Elloughton (called Cave after 1743), Kelk or North Wolds
(Bridlington after 1712), Owstwick, Balby, Brighouse, Knaresborough, Pontefract, Settle.

§ Rowntree, op. cit.

See list in Quarter Sess. Rec. (N.R. Rec. Soc.), vii, 102, 103. At the same sessions five Quakers and
a Nonconformist minister took the necessary declarations of exemption (Thirsk, 8 Oct. 1689).

* Questions at yearly meeting, quoted by I. M. Hall, in Friends’ Quarterly Examiner (July 1903), 354:
eke a O. Boyes, The Richardsons of Cleveland, 31, mentions, e.g., Friends from Lothersdale imprisoned
in 1796. :

7 Ibid. 17 (case of Isaac Richardson of Whitby). 76 Rowntree, op. cit.
66

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

nonthly meeting, ‘ We know we are few, and we own we are weak, but
love one another.’ Their educational activity, however, was prominent
these days of decline. Ackworth school was founded in 1779 by
Fothergill and others.” William and Esther Tuke conducted from 1784.
1813 the proprietary girls’ school at York for which Lindley Murray
tte his English grammar." A boys’ school was started in 1823 in the
mises of the quarterly meeting. Schools at Rawdon and Great Ayton
‘e founded in 1823 and 1841 ;* while the Flounders Institute at Ackworth
ie into being in 1847.% The decline of Quakerism was due not only to
growth of Methodism, but to loss of the old enthusiasm, and to the
ctness with which marriages with non-Friends entailed expulsion from the
iety.* Notes from Thirsk monthly meeting (1797) point to the severity
h which marriage outside the society and extravagance in dress were
arded.* During the 19th century, monthly meetings decreased in number.
irsk meeting, dissolved in 1827, was divided between York, Guisborough,
Darlington. Richmond was joined to Westmorland quarterly meeting
(816 ; Guisborough to Durham quarterly meeting in 1850. The Picker-
meeting, composed of the old Scarborough and Malton meetings, joined
ll, composed of Owstwick, Cave, and North Wolds, in 1858. In 1853
ghouse, which now comprises most of the West Riding, took in Knares-
ough and Settle. Of late years, a revival of enthusiasm has been
iceable among Friends, whose personal influence in the county is still great ;
, although the number of particular meetings was in 1899 only thirty-
zn, the number of professing and attending members is slightly on the
rease.*”

Among the Puritan ‘ priests,’ so obnoxious to Fox, were many Royalists.
qua Kirby of Wakefield suffered imprisonment for praying publicly for
irles I, and was implicated in Sir George Booth’s plot (1659). The
st famous of Yorkshire Nonconformists, Oliver Heywood, who ministered
Coley Chapel, near Halifax, preserved a ‘ quiet and peaceable attachment’
the Stuarts.* Among the commissioners who went to Breda in 1660
| Edward Bowles ; ° and John Shaw of Hull became chaplain to Charles IT,
was present at his coronation.” All, however, were strongly attached to
ir own form of worship. Bowles is said to have refused the deanery of
'k as the price of his conformity. A friend complained to him that the
umon prayer was dry: ‘that,’ said Bowles, ‘may be the reason why our

® Boyes, op. cit. 34. 8 Tbid. 156 seq.

" Tbid. 145 seq. ; Rowntree, op. cit.

* Rowntree, op. cit.

% See An Account of Charitable Trusts and other Properties within the compass of Durham Quarterly Meeting,
ngton, 1886, pp. 58 seq.

* Rowntree, op. cit. 61, speaks of this as ‘suicidal madness.’

* Hall, op. cit. 358, 360. Quotations on this second point occur ibid. from the quarterly meeting
e of 1712, which recommends Friends ‘to refrain from having fine tea-tables set with fine china, seeing
nore for sight than service.’

* Rowntree, op. cit. The Scarborough and Malton meetings were united as Pickering in 1789.
wick and Cave were united 1775, and called Hull after 1803. The Bridlington meeting (North Wolds)
e-opened in 1810 for a time.

* Statistics in Rowntree, op. cit. In 1669 there were 279 meetings in Yorkshire : 294 are marked in
1ap, ibid. The number of professing Yorkshire Friends in 1899 was 2,632 (ibid. 34, 35).

* Calamy, Nonconf. Mem. iii, 454. ® Ibid. 428 seq.

" Yorks. Diaries (Surt. Soc.), 153.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

vicars-choral run to the alehouse as soon as they have done reading it.’
The liturgy, said Thomas Sharp of Adel, was ‘defective in necessaries,
redundant in superfluities, dangerous in some things, disputable in many,
disorderly in all.’* A fortnight before the Restoration, John Botts preached
violently at Darfield, advocating armed resistance to the king.” The minister
of Horbury declared somewhat later that ‘those that have taken the protesta-
tion, and, after, come to the Common Prayer of the Church, are perjured
persons before God and man.’* Dr. Lake was preferred after the Restoration
to the vicarage of Leeds; the lecturer, Christopher Nesse, occupied his
afternoon sermons with confuting what Lake had preached in the morning.”
Shaw, at Hull, had been blamed for acknowledging Charles II in 1660: in
1661 some of his congregation found his ‘ ministry too sharp for their lives,’
and complained to Bishop Sheldon. He was inhibited from preaching in
the church, but was allowed to keep his mastership of the Charterhouse.
However, his preaching here attracted people from the town churches ; and
he eventually had to retire to Rotherham. His active ministry closed with
the silencing of Nonconformist preachers on 24 August 1662. Bowles died
three days before that date. Shaw, in spite of occasional alarms, died in
peace (1664).” Kirby died under excommunication, and was buried in
his own garden.” Heywood, excommunicated in Halifax Church in
1662 and 1680, led a wandering life on the borders of Lancashire and
Yorkshire: after the Declaration of Indulgence in 1679 he settled at
Northowram. Driven away in 1680, he was imprisoned for ‘riotous assembly’
in 1685, but returned to Northowram after James II’s declaration, and died
in 1702.' Cornelius Todd, ejected from Bilton Ainsty, suffered imprison-
ment later on at Pontefract. In 1674, preaching at the opening of a
meeting-house in Leeds, he reminded the soldiers who came to interrupt him
that, even in the time of Nero, St. Paul had been allowed to preach in his
own hired house.* Sir John Jackson of Hickleton sheltered the minister of
the place as his chaplain, and his wife as housekeeper ; and Nathaniel Denton
of Bolton-on-Dearne, ‘a picture of an old puritan,’ found a temporary pulpit
in Hickleton Church.’ Richard Whitehurst, ejected from Laughton-en-le-
Morthen, continued to preach in his friends’ houses: to avoid capture, he
preached in a lobby between two rooms, with a thin curtain between him
and his hearers.“ Some of the Puritan clergy conformed: Henry Swift of
Penistone, after much persuasion, consented to take the Oxford oath, and to
read a few prayers.’ Robert Todd of St. John’s, Leeds, still went to church
after his ejection.’ But the majority separated from the Church to which
they could no longer conscientiously belong. The events of 1662 proved to
the nonconforming bodies, as to the Churchmen of twenty years before, the
truth of the saying, persecutio est evangelii genius.

* Calamy, op. cit. iii, 457; J. Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy, ii, 83, says that Dr. Richard Marsh had
been nominated dean by Charles I at Oxford : he was installed 17 Aug. 1660.

% Calamy, op. cit. ili, 421. % Depositions from the Castle of York (Surt. Soc.), 83.

* Tbid. 85 n. % Calamy, op. cit. iii, 441.

” Yorks. Diaries (Surt. Soc.), 154 seq. 8 Ibid. 157.

® Thid. 161.

™ Calamy, op. cit. ili, 455. See Depositions from the Castle of York (Surt. Soc.), 97, for a charge of
persistent Nonconformity against Kirby. 1 Calamy, op. cit. ili, 428 seq.

"Ibid. iii, 424, 425. ® Ibid.

‘Ibid. 442. 5 Ibid. 443. 6 Ibid. 440.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Accepted Frewen, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, reaped the reward
his royalist devotion by his translation to York in 1660.7 He died in
54; and neither he nor his successor, Richard Sterne, translated from
rlisle (1664-168 3),° left much mark on the church-life of the diocese. In
tober 1663 plans for a Puritan rising in the north were discovered, The
rkshire insurgents encamped in Farnley Wood, near Leeds ; but they
re unripe for rebellion. Some twenty ringleaders were executed. This,
wever, did not still discontent. In 1665 a body of Quakers attacked the
ar of Helmsley during a funeral, and tore his surplice and prayer-book.”
wing the plague of 1665 a Londoner was heard to say at Rothwell, ‘Now
che time, if we will stir, for the Anabaptists and Quakers are not afraid of
: plague.’ A preacher named Gill denounced the king and queen as
laters at Mirfield in September 1666;¥ and in 1667 the Independents
icocted another abortive plot at Sowerby, near Halifax.¥ In 1679 the
ellion of the Scottish Covenanters encouraged a gentleman at Rotherham
wish ‘the Church down and the priests buried in their surplices ; for I
ow noe good they do, but are a great charge to the parish in washing
m.’* The discovery of the so-called ‘ popish plot’ in 1678 re-awakened
> zeal of the authorities against recusants. An attempt had been made to
ablish a nunnery in Yorkshire. A site was found at Dolebank, near Ripley,
1 a Mrs. Lascelles was made abbess. The chief promoter of the
1eme, Sir Thomas Gascoigne of Barnbow, was arrested on the information
his servant, Robert Bolron, the chief of a band of informers who emulated
tus Oates in the north. The confessor-designate to the nuns, John
mwallis, sought refuge at Broughton Hall, but was arrested on his way
sre.’ In August 1679 a priest named Nicholas Postgate was executed at
ik.” Gascoigne was acquitted in 1680 ; but Cornwallis remained in prison.
rly in 1679 four men and four women were presented to the North Riding
tices for hearing mass on two occasions near Grinton." Occasional
nishments for hearing and saying mass are reported from Yorkshire before
s date; and very full lists of recusants occur between 1660 and 1680.”
it the ‘ popish plot’ stimulated persecution ; and even the idle gossip of two
pist women at Scawton was reported to the justices, and punished by fine.”

The Laudian revival had never taken hold of Yorkshire. Sterne, who
d attended Laud on the scaffold, seems to have done nothing to improve
gligence of discipline in his cathedral church. The remarks made by
wles about the vicars-choral receive some confirmation from the complaints
John Dolben, who was translated from Rochester to York in 1683." The

’ Drake, op. cit. 463. 8 Ibid. 464.

*See Depositions from the Castle of York (Surt. Soz.), 102 seq. Raine, ibid. Introd. pp. xvili seq., gives a
her account of the plot and its consequences. ” Ibid. 129, 130.

"Ibid. 134. The plague and great fire were regarded as divine judgements on the royal family.

Ibid. 146, 147. 8 Tbid. 157, 158. 4 Ibid. 239.

* Thid. 232, 233 n., 242 seq. 8 Ibid. 232 seq.

” Tbid. 230 seq. : 8 Quarter Sess. Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.), vii, 18.

™ See Depositions from the Castle of York (Surt. Soc.), 119-123 (1664, 487 names) ; 136-40 (1665-6,
names) ; 166-71 (1669, 760 names) ; 179-84 (1670, 775 names) ; Quarter Sess. Rec. (N.R. Rec Soc.),
195-202, 204 seq. (both 1674) ; vii, 36-38, 41-44 (both 1680).

” Quarter Sess. Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.), vii, 12, 13.

7 Drake, op. cit. 465. See J. Walker, Suffzrings of the Clergy, ii, 107. Dolben in earlier years had
d in the defence of York against the Roundheads, and had fought at Marston Moor. He was wounded in
Royalist cause. His mother was a sister of Archbishop Williams.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

weekly celebration of the communion, enjoined on the chapter by Archbishop
Holgate, had fallen into disuse soon after the Reformation. A monthly
celebration had been established in 1617, in addition to the usual commu-
nions at the chief festal seasons. Dolben, aided by the precentor, Thomas
Comber,” succeeded with some difficulty in restoring the weekly celebration.
Dr. Peter Samways, who had been ejected from Cheshunt in Hertfordshire
during the Civil War, became rector of Wath, near Ripon, after the Restora-
tion, and shortly after received the living of Bedale anda stall at York. At
Bedale he established a monthly communion every first Sunday, and every
second Sunday at Wath. For the thirty-two years of his incumbency
morning and evening prayer were said daily at Bedale. Samways preached
on Sunday mornings, and expounded the day’s gospel in the afternoon.* He
was a vehement anti-papist, and was said to have disputed on transubstantia-
tion at Wath with the Duke of York. After the accession of James II he
came into conflict with his diocesan, Bishop Cartwright of Chester. On the
deprivation of Bishop Ken in 1690 he was offered, but refused, the see of
Bath and Wells.”

Archbishop Dolben held his see less than three years. He died in
April 1686. Three months before his death there was a riot in York
Minster at the funeral of Lady Strafford. The soldiers who guarded the
hearse were attacked, and the mob tore down the escutcheons which had been
placed round the quire. Lawlessness and sacrilege were inevitable conse-
quences of the constant change of government and revival of persecution.”
After Dolben’s death, James II placed the compliant Bishop of Chester in
charge of the vacant see.* It was filled in 1688 by the translation of
Thomas Lamplugh from Exeter, as a reward for his opposition to the landing
of the Prince of Orange. He was enthroned the day after the arrival of
William at St. James’s.” Bishop Cartwright followed James into exile:
Lamplugh swore allegiance to William and Mary, and assisted Bishop Comp-
ton at their coronation.” Most of the Yorkshire clergy readily accepted the
new order of things; and few names of importance occur in the list of
Yorkshire non-jurors." The coming of William brought peace to the
dissenting bodies, but a sword to the Papists. The President of Douay, James
Smith, had appeared at York (1687) as vicar apostolic of the north, under
the title of Bishop of Calliopolis, and had been solemnly welcomed, not with-

* Works and Letters of Denis Granville (Surt. Soc. xxxvii), 175, 176, 181, seq. ; (xlvii), 85 seq.

* J. Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy, ii, 363 seq. * J. Walker, op. cit.

> Drake, op. cit. 465.

* Depositions from the Castle of York (Surt. Soc.), 278 seq.

” See ibid. 126n, 281, 282, The wild condition of parts of the West Riding continued to be no-
torious till the very end of the 18th century. Numerous cases of alleged witchcraft occur, notably from
the Halifax and Huddersfield districts, in Depositions from the Castle of York (Surt. Soc.) ; see especially 28 seq.
38, 51, 52, 74, 75, &c., and the case, 75 seq., in which the bewitched person was a Miss Mallory of
Studley. Cf. the references in note 62, 49, and Wesley’s accounts of the mobs at Halifax and
Roughlee (Fourna/, 22 and 25 Aug. 1748) and Huddersfield (9 May 1757).

* J. Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy, ii, 363.

‘ ™ Drake, op. cit. 466. Macaulay, Hist. of Engl. cap. ix, tells the story of Lamplugh’s flight from
xeter.

® Dict. Nat. Biog. xxii, 31.

* There is a rough and inaccurately spelt list in Hickes’ prefatory life to Kettlewell’s Works (1729),
i (app. pp. xi, xii). Samuel Crowborough, Prebendary of York and Archdeacon of Nottingham, and John
Milner, vicar of Leeds, are the principal names among some twenty-three beneficed Yorkshire clergy in York
and Chester dioceses.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

it some disturbance by the Romanist clergy.” Now the penal laws were
vived, a strict watch was kept on papists, and orders were issued for seizing
ieir horses and arms.* Places like Egton still afforded refuge to recusants,
ho were hunted down at intervals ; * but in 1696 only nine Papists were
turned to Archbishop Sharp as existing in so populous a place as Leeds.™
The archbishopric, on Lamplugh’s death (1691), was given to John
narp, Dean of Canterbury, who as Dean of Norwich and rector of St. Giles-
-the-Fields had been threatened with suspension under James II. Like
is predecessor, Sharp was a Yorkshireman by birth.’ As archbishop, he
1owed much religious zeal and tact.* One practical outcome of his know-
dge of the diocese of York was his collection of manuscripts, relating to
ach several parish, and supplementing the voluminous collections made by
is contemporary, James Torre of Snydall.%® Sharp died in 1714, and
ir William Dawes, a pious but undistinguished prelate, was translated from
thester.“” Dawes was succeeded by Lancelot Blackburne, Bishop of Exeter
1724-43), who was somewhat more conspicuous as a courtier than a
relate.“ ‘Thomas Herring, translated from Bangor in 1743, and to Canter-
ury in 1747, a kindly and accomplished man, has left in one or two of his
stters a record of his diocesan work which has some bearing on the religious
fe of the age. His arrival at Bishopthorpe brought him into a ‘round of
ompliments and entertainments,’ from which he retired to perform his
iocesan visitation. ‘I bless God for it,’ he writes, ‘I have finished the
rork, not only without hurt, but with great pleasure to myself, and I return
ome with great satisfaction of heart for having done my duty, and acquired
sort of knowledge of the diocese, which can be had by nothing but personal
aspection.’ He reckoned that in his progress he had confirmed above
0,000 people; probably haste in administering the rite stood in the
vay of accurate computation.” Among the clergy of the diocese at this time
vas Laurence Sterne, who became vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest in 1738,
eceived a stall at York in 1741, obtained the living of Stillington on his
aarriage in 1743, and the perpetual curacy of Coxwold in 1760." Herring,
s Archbishop of Canterbury, mentioned Sterne’s name for a vacant prebend
t Canterbury in 1752. A more theologically minded incumbent was
\rchbishop Blackburne’s son, Francis, who, as rector of Richmond and Arch-

Ornsby, Dioc. Hist. York, 402, 403. Lord Danby wrenched Smith’s pastoral staff from him ; it is
ill preserved in the vestry of York Minster.

8 See Quarter Sess. Rec. (N.R. Rec. Soc.), vii, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, &c. (all instances in 1689).

* Tbid. vii, 213 : a warrant against John Danby of Egton Bridge upon information for saying mass
13 July 1708) ; ibid. 215 : 32s. 6d. to be paid to thechief constables of Langbaurgh for charges in taking up
‘oman Catholics at Egton, &c. (5 October 1708). . ’

** Lawton, op. cit. 89. % Drake, op. cit. 467, 468. See Macaulay, Hist. cap. vi.

*” Lamplugh was a native of Thwing ; Sharp, of Bradford. : :

*° See Thomas Sharp, Life of Fohn Sharp, D.D. (ed. T. Newcome, 1825). In pt. ii, pp. 115 seq., his
jocesan work is noticed at length. ;

*® See Lawton, op. cit. Introd. pp. xii, xiii. “© Drake, op. cit. 469. :

“' Much slander about Blackburne was collected by Horace Walpole ; see Walpole’s Lerters (ed. Cunning-
iam), i, 235 (21 Mar. 1742-3) ; ii, 250 (22 Apr. 1751) ; ix, 472 (11 Dec. 1780), also the short memoir of
is times drawn up by Walpole, ibid. i, 74.

" Letters from Dr. Thomas Herring . . . to William Duncombe, Esq. 1728-57 (1 777), 62 seq. (15 Sept.

“2 Dict, Nat. Biog. liv, 199 seq. Sterne’s Yorkshire preferments were due to his uncle, Jaques Sterne,
tandson of Archbishop Sterne and Precentor and Cancn of York. .

© Herring to Duke of Newcastle, Add. MSS. 32726, fol. 470 (22 Apr.1752). Sterne’s name 1s the
econd of the two candidates : Herring’s language about both is rather ambiguous.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

deacon of Cleveland, created some sensation by his pronounced latitu-
dinarianism.* There is no reason to suppose that men like Sterne did not
‘perform those rites and ceremonies which are instituted by the Church of
England’ with decency and decorum; but there was need of a strong
influence from outside to quicken spiritual fervour.

Nevertheless at no time were the spiritual activities of the Church
altogether neglected. To the time of Sharp belong the returns known as
‘ Notitia Parochialis,’ which show that many Yorkshire clergy were alive
to the dangers of the time.** The vicar of Pontefract complained that the
chapel at Knottingley was turned into a meeting-house.*?7 At Heptonstall,
Nonconformity was on the increase: the curate could not obtain the small
annual stipend due to him from the vicar of Halifax, and depended
entirely on the charity of a diminishing congregation.“ Luddenden Chapel,
_ also in Halifax parish, was without a curate ; this the churchwardens attri-
buted to the decay of the woollen trade, which doubtless had its effect on
the vicar’s stipend, but did not prevent Nonconformists from building chapels.”
Some clergy complain of the lack of parochial libraries, as at Hawnby in
Bilsdale ; ® the rector of Treeton said that there was ‘scarce a book in the whole
parish but what are in my own library.’ *' On the other hand there was a
good library at North Grimston, the bequest of Archdeacon Thurscross ;
and a vicar of Stainton-in-Cleveland had left his books for the use of his
successors.** Sharp consecrated new chapels-of-ease to Thornhill and
Flockton (1699),%-* and to Kildwick at Silsden (1712). Blackburn, in
person or by deputy, consecrated the chapel of Ripponden, in Halifax parish
(1737),7 and the important churches of Holy Trinity at Leeds (1727),° and
St. Paul at Sheffield (1740). There was no lack of rebuilding during
the 18th century. In 1707 Sir John Bland of Kippax paid for the
rebuilding of the steeple of St. Giles’ at Pontefract.® Tinsley Chapel
was rebuilt and furnished in 1710 by the Hon. Thomas Wentworth,”
the ruined chapel of High Worsall, in a detached part of Northallerton
parish, was rebuilt in 1719.% A brief was granted in 1728 for the
rebuilding of Yarm Church. The fine church of Kirkleatham was

“See Whitaker, Richmondshire, i, go seq.

“William Mason, the friend of Gray and Horace Walpole, rector of Aston, near Rotherham, 1754-97,
Precentor and Canon of York, and Prebendary of Driffield, should not be forgotten. Although irreproachable
in faith and morals, he was, like Herring, essentially of his age ; and the spirit of the delightful humour shown
in his letters to Walpole (printed in the footnotes to Cunningham’s edition of Walpole’s correspondence) is
eminently secular. He was, however, constantly resident at Aston, and was evidently much esteemed by
his friends and parishioners.

““ Lawton, op. cit. Introd. pp. xi, xii.

“ Tbid. (Not. Par. no. 653), 147. * Tbid. 131.

* Ibid. (Not. Par. 1057), 519. Hawnby is apparently the ‘Hornby’ mentioned by Wesley, Fournal
(7 July 1757), where the lord of the manor had turned the Methodists out of their houses, and forty or fifty
of them were living in some little houses which they had built at the end of the village.

* Ibid. 237. ‘Thank God, the whole living is worth more than thirty pounds.’

* Ibid. 276. Timothy Thurscross, Archdeacon of Cleveland and vicar of Kirkby Moorside 1635-8, was
a worthy representative of the Laudian school of churchmen, see Yorks. Diaries (Surt. Soc.), 420 seq.

“ Lawton, op. cit. (Not. Par. no, 1058), 502.

* Tbid. 160.
* Whitaker, Hist. and Antig. Craven (ed. Morant, 1878), 219.
* Lawton, op. cit. 134. % Ibid. gt.

“Ibid. 222 ; the church had been built twenty years before. See history of the dispute about the
presentation in Hunter, Halamshire (ed. Gatty), 273, 274.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

itirely rebuilt under a faculty issued in 1756.% These are a few instances
ut of many ; and credit must be given to this much-abused age for its zeal
1 retrieving past neglect. Repair, however, did not forbid occasional
estruction. Thus at Burton Agnes (1730) ® and Cowlam (1713) chancels
rere shortened. Cowlam lost its tower and probably its aisles in 1735."
‘essingby Chapel was shortened in 1765, and faculties for ‘ contracting ’
‘olkton Church were obtained in 1771 and 1772." In the first half of the
entury chancel-screens were sedulously removed by the archdeacons.”
*hurches were crowded with galleries like those which still remain at
Vhitby. John Hobson of Dodworth Green notes (30 November 1726) :
Sunday last was the first time that I sat in the new seat in the loft which
Ir. James Oates has builded in Silkston Church.’” Doncaster, Rotherham,
nd Scarborough Churches suffered severely in this way.” Restoration was
eldom free from the p/umbi sacra fames: and, as the century wore on, slate
oofs became increasingly common in place of the old leaden ones.” It was
mly with difficulty that Bishop Cleaver of Chester prevented the removal of
he lead from Knaresborough Church at the end of the century.”

For Matthew Hutton (1747-57), as for Herring, York was the
tepping-stone from Bangor to Canterbury. John Gilbert, translated from
ialisbury in 1757, was succeeded by another Bishop of Salisbury, Robert
day Drummond (1761-76), and Drummond by William Markham
1776-1807), who had been appointed Bishop of Chester in 1771.
Jnder these archbishops, the work of building and restoring churches
vas pursued with increasing activity. If ideals of worship were not
iigh, the need of decent places of worship was respected. Archbishop
silbert, moreover, introduced a change for the better by confirming candi-
lates separately, instead of in batches.“* Methodism had its effect on
he Church’s energy. We have seen that Nonconformity had made progress
ilready, especially in the West Riding. Presbyterians and Quakers were the
eading bodies ; but Independents of various denominations had made their
way, as, for instance, at Barnoldswick, where there was a settlement of
Baptists from 1717 onwards.™° About 1740 John Nelson, a mason, returned
‘rom London to his native place, Birstal, full of the preaching of John
Wesley. Nelson was opposed by the Moravians, who urged his friends ‘ not
7o run about to church and sacrament, and to keep their religion to them-
selves.""* On 26 May 1742 Wesley preached his first sermon in Yorkshire
it noon on the top of Birstal Hill ‘to several hundreds of plain people.’
The same evening he preached on Dewsbury Moor.” His former friend,
Benjamin Ingham, the Moravian leader, resented Wesley’s inquiries into
the spread of quietist doctrine. On 3 June Wesley, at Mirfield, found

* Lawton, op. cit. 490. ® Ibid. 292. “6 Thid. 273, 274.

* Ibid. 287. % Tbid. 298.

® For details, see C. B. Norcliffe, ‘The Chancel-Screens of Yorks.’, Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. vi, 177 seq.
” Yorks. Diaries (Surt. Soc.), 276. ” Faculties for gallerics mentioned ap. Lawton, op. cit.

™ Instances in Lawton, op. cit. passim. At Bessingby (see note 67, above) the lead was to be sold, and the
‘oof covered with pan-tiles.

8 Whitaker, Richmondshire, i, 263. Ibid. i, 250, is a note of the plausible deal central tower added to
he fabric of Langton-on-Swale Church. ™ Le Neve, Fasti Eccl. Angl. iii.

2 Dict. Nat. Biog. xxi, 330, 331. ™> Lawton, op. cit. 247.

™ Wesley, Journal (ed. F. W. Macdonald), i, 372, 373 (26 May 1742).

® Ibid. i, 373. Cf. ibid. iv, 11 (30 Apr. 1774).

3 ~ 72 10

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

that Ingham had been preaching an hour before him.” Moravianism in
Yorkshire left permanent influence in the settlement of Fulneck, near Pudsey,
founded in 1748; but its success in opposition to Methodism was tem-
porary.” At Great Horton in 1745 Wesley found eighty of its disciples
reduced to‘ scarce ten:’ the remainder presumably, as at Tadcaster, had
thrown in their lot with him. Opposition from those in authority was
more formidable. In 1744 Nelson was imprisoned at Bradford and York ;
he tells us that the publicans of Birstal united with the vicar in procuring
his arrest.” Twice on Easter Day, 1747, at Heworth and Acomb, he was
stoned by a York mob, and at Acomb was stamped upon and left for dead by
a zealous opponent.” Wesley was stoned at Leeds in September 1745 and
the following January." In1748 a mob from Colne attacked him at Rough
Lee, on the edge of Lancashire ; and no redress could be obtained from the
magistrate.” His first visit to Hull (1752) was marked by a riot in which
‘many behaved as if possessed by Moloch,’ and he and Mrs. Wesley were
forced to take refuge in the coach of a lady, and drive from the field with
missiles pouring through the windows.® As late as 1757 the mob at Hud-
dersfield ‘appeared just ready to devour’ him. Wesley welcomed danger,
and in later years often deplored the lack of persecution. Even in 1748,
when he had most to fear from the crowd, he found the Methodists of
Armley ‘ quite unnerved by the constant sunshine.’ *

Between 1742 and 1790 Wesley paid no less than forty-two visits to
the north of England, including on each occasion one or two visits to York-
shire. At first he visited chiefly the neighbourhood of Birstal and Sheffield,
where Methodism had been planted by David Taylor, subsequently a
Moravian.” In 1743 he was invited to Wensley by the vicar, Mr. Clayton.
His sermon puzzled the parishioners ‘ but, at length, one deeper learned than
the rest, brought them all clearly over to his opinion, that he wasa Presbyterian
papist.’ *’ His first visit to Cleveland was in 1745, when he went three
times to Osmotherley.* In 1752 he extended his field eastward to Hull and
Pocklington.” He was at Robin Hood’s Bay in 1753,” and thenceforward
there were few parts of Yorkshire which his pastoral visits did not include.
His energy was extraordinary. Onrg April1745, after preaching at Northal-
lerton in the evening, he consented to ride over to Osmotherley and preach

Wesley, Journal (ed. F. W. Macdonald), i, 376 (3 June 1742).

7 Wesley went to look at Fulneck, while it was being built, ii, 6,17 (29 Apr. 1747). He was shown
over the settlement 17 Apr. 1780 ; and his distrust of Moravianism is manifest in the comment, ‘But can
they lay up treasure on earth, and at the same time lay up treasure in heaven ?? (iv, 180).

™ Wesley, ibid. 1, 497 (25 Apr. 1745). The reference to Tadcaster occurs iii, 262 (23 July 1766).

® Southey, Life cf Wesley (ed. 1890), 278 seq. : the account is taken from Nelsof’s journals. Cf. Wesley,
op. cit. i, 468 (15 May 1744). Nelson was pressed for a soldier; his recusancy involved imprisonment,
He was delivered by the intercession of Lady Huntingdon.

° Wesley, ibid. ii, 15, 16 (20 Apr. 1747).

§ Thid. i, 522, $44, 545 (12 Sept. 1745 ; 21 Jan. 1745-4).

® Ibid. ii, 74 seq. (25 Aug. 1748). ® Ibid. ii, 223, 224 (24 Apr. 1752).

“ Tbid. i, 447 (30 Oct. 1743). From a note of 14 June 1744 (iv, 18) it would seem that the
Moravians had done pioneer work for Wesley in these parts before dissension arose.

* Tbid. 1,494, $22, 527 (15 Apr., 16 Sept., 21 Oct. 1745). On his first visit he exclaims on the
wisdom of God in bringing him, ‘without any care or thought of mine, into the centre of the Papists in
Yorksiire.”

* Ibid. ti, 223, 224 (24, 25 Apr. 1752). See note 83, above.

® Ibid. ii, 255 (8 May 1753).

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

there the same night. Next morning at five he preached to a crowd, some
of whom had sat up all night for fear of losing a second sermon. The
same evening at eight he was preaching at Sykehouse, on the border of
Lincolnshire.” This was in the days of his prime ; but forty-three years later,
he was able to preach at Stokesley, Guisborough, and Whitby in the same day ;
and, five days after, to ride from Bridlington to Malton, preach there at noon,
and preach at Beverley the same evening.” His last sermons in Yorkshire
were preached at Beverley and Hull, and the day after his last birthday he
left Yorkshire for the last time.®

From the beginning of his travels Wesley had friends among the clergy
of the county. The vicars of Halifax and Dewsbury met him on friendly
terms ;* and in April 1752 he was invited to preach in Wakefield Church.™
Opposition never ceased altogether. In June 1755 he was asked to preach in
one of the York churches ; but one of the residentiaries threatened the incum-
bent with the words, ‘Sir, I abhor persecution: but if you let Mr. Wesley
preach it will be the worse for you.’ In 1757 there were signs of opposi-
tion at York to open-air preaching ; and the churchwarden at Pocklington
had the bells rung to encourage the mob.” The same thing happened at
Bridlington in 1772. In April 1780 Wesley was excluded from the church
at Haworth by a new vicar ;* and in June 1784 he heard the vicar of Scar-
borough preach against his opinions. ‘All who preach thus,’ he exclaims
in sorrow, ‘will drive the Methodists from the Church, in spite of all that
I can do.’ Although important churches like Leeds, Halifax, Huddersfield,
Hull, and Bingley opened their doors to him,’ his own independence of action
and the growth of meeting-houses alienated many Churchmen.? Archdeacon
Blackburne entertained him at Richmond in 1786, but feared to cause
offence by asking him to preach ;* the vicar of Selby invited him to the
abbey church in 1788, but changed his mind.* The austerity of Methodism
and its sacramental teaching were dreaded by the sound Protestants of that
age, who objected even to the figure of an angel blowing a trumpet
which had been placed on the sounding-board of the pulpit at Halifax.’
Revivals were stumbling-blocks to evenly-balanced minds. One of these,
early in 1760, took place at Otley, with the usual manifestations of personal
testimony and ‘loud and ardent cries’ for salvation, in a meeting of ‘ poor
and illiterate persons. ‘The Church made no effort to keep excitable

Wesley, Journal (ed. F. W. Macdonald), i, 494.

% Tbid. iv, 436 seq. (13, 19 May 1788). 8 Ibid. iv, 506 (25-29 June 1790).
4 Ibid. i, 376 (2 June 1742) ; ii, 17 (28 Apr. 1747) ; cf il, 220 (10 Apr. 1752).

% Thid. ii, 221 (12 Apr. 1752). Ibid. ii, 299 (7 June 1755).

7 Ibid. ii, 384, 385 (14, 15 July 1757). 8 Ibid. ii, 482 (22 June 1772).

% Ibid. iv, 181 (23 Apr. 1780). Ibid. iv, 288 (20 June 1784).

1 For Leeds, see ibid. iv, 154, 217 (2 May 17793 § Aug. 1781): on both occasions there was a large
number of communicants, 700 or 800 in 1779, 1100 in 1781 ; Halifax and Huddersfield, iv, 10 (17 Apr.
1772) ; Hull, iv, 344 (18 May 1786) ; Bingley, iv, 151 (19 Apr. 1776), and on several other occasions.

? Wesley’s interest in the growth of meeting-houses may be seen ibid. i, 463, Hutton Rudby (7 July
1758) ; iii, 177, Yarm (24 Apr. 1764) 5 iii, 263, Bradford (27 July 1766) ; iii, 413, Doncaster (11 July
1770), &c., &c. os —

8 Ibid. iv, 341 (9 May 1786). Wesley notes, Journ. iil, 355 (20 Dec. 1768), an implication of Papist
leanings brought against him in Blackburne’s pamphlet on the penal laws against Romanists.

‘ Ibid. iv, 439 (26 June 1788). ;

6 Ibid. iv, 151 (15 Apr. 1779). For suspicions about Wesley himself, see notes 87 and 3, above.

® Letter to Wesley from Otley, ibid. iii, 494, 495 (13 Feb. 1760). Cf. Wesley’s extraordinary account
of the revival at Kingswood School, iii, 420 seq. (18-30 Sept. 1770). Such events may well have awakened
mistrust in otherwise well-disposed persons.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

converts of this type, who were susceptible to any preacher who took the
trouble to interest himself in them. Thusit was that Wesley had to complain
of defections to various types of Nonconformity. Of the success of the
‘ Anabaptists’ at Bingley he said in 1766, ‘I see clearer and clearer none will
keep to us unless they keep to the Church. Whoever separate from the
Church will separate from the Methodists.’?

Yet, although the Church did not exert herself to keep the Methodists,
Wesley’s influence was eventually powerful. Henry Venn the elder, at
Huddersfield, and William Romaine, chaplain to Lady Huntingdon, at
Ledston Park, were among Wesley’s friends in Yorkshire,’ and their names
are eminent in the history of the evangelical revival in the Church. His
early friend, Mr. Clayton of Wensley, showed the kinship between evangelical
doctrine and reverent worship. Wesley found that the thirty houses or so
in the chapelry of Redmire furnished fifty communicants.’ The ministry of
William Grimshaw at Haworth from 1742 to 1762 proved the quickening
power of Methodism on the clergy who accepted its tenets. When Grim-
shaw came to Haworth, Methodism was a new thing to him; but his personal
experience had turned his mind to its doctrines, and he became their chief
apostle in Craven, ‘ready to go to prison or death for Christ’s sake.’ Wesley
often preached at Haworth; Grimshaw guided him through the neigh-
bouring hill-country, and was his companion in the riot at Rough Lee.”
Communicants, sometimes 1,000 in number, filled the church, ‘and scarcely
a trifler among them.’ Grimshaw preached three times a month in each of
the outlying hamlets of his parish, and lectured on Sunday evenings to the
poor who were ashamed to come to church in rags. In accepting constant
invitations to preach in the neighbourhood, he used ‘his body with less
compassion than a merciful man would use his beast.’ Long after the novelty
of Methodism had ceased his vivid manner of preaching attracted strangers
from a distance, and his burial was ‘more ennobling than a royal funeral,’
attended as it was by a multitude of his disciples, weeping ‘ for the guide of
their souls, to whom each of them was dear as children to their father.’ "

One substantial result of the religious feeling kindled by the evangelical
revival is seen in the increased provision of church fabrics which attended it.
In Markham’s archiepiscopate a considerable number of churches were
rebuilt ; two new churches were consecrated in Leeds, and one in each of
the towns of Shefheld, Hull, and Wakefield.2 The seventy years covered by
the rule of Markham and his successor, Edward Venables Vernon Harcourt,
translated from Carlisle (1808-47), were in fact a most important epoch
of religious transition. Under Harcourt the subdivision of large parishes
was prosecuted with much energy. The parliamentary grant which provided
for the erection of new churches in populous districts was applied to the
West Riding with noticeable effect. In 1821 new chapels avere begun under
this grant at Pudsey and Stanley. In 1823 two chapels in Dewsbury parish,

’ Wesley, Journal (ed. F. W. Macdonald), iii, 265 (4 Aug. 1766).

* Wesley preached in Kippax Church 25 July 1761 (ibid. iii, 70). Romaine read prayers, and Venn
arrived while they were in church. Cf. ibid. iii, 484 (13 July 1772), where he speaks of ‘ Ledstone ’ Church.

* Ibid. i, 469 (20 May 1744). See note 82, above.

" Wesley, ibid. iii, 84 seq. (1 Apr. 1762), wrote a short memoir of Grimshaw, concluding with a copy
of one of Grimshaw’s ‘ plain, rough letters’ to the society in London.
* Lawton, op. cit. 92, &c.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

one in Bradford, and St. Mark’s at Leeds, were taken in hand. St. George’s
at Sheffield was consecrated in 1825, and between that time and 1832 the
grant was used to rebuild five chapels and for the building of three chapels in
Leeds parish, two in Sheffield, four in Almondbury, four in Huddersfield, three
in Halifax, two in Birstal, and one each in Bradford, Hull, Kirkburton, and
Ripon.’ From other sources much enlargement and rebuilding was effected,
notably in Halifax parish. The benefactions of individual clergymen were
responsible for the chapels of Skircoat near Halifax and Holy Trinity at Ripon.”
Lord Fitzwilliam provided a chapel at Swinton: the Misses Harrison of
Wadsley built a chapel on their manor.’*’ The formation of new ecclesiastical
parishes followed as a necessary consequence, Barnsley in Silkstone, Sharow
in Ripon, and Morley in Batley, being among the earliest instances. This
increase in the number of churches and parishes was followed in 1836 by the
subdivision of the dioceses of York and Chester. The new see of Ripon was
made to include a large portion of the West Riding, with the addition of the
deaneries which had lain in the diocese of Chester since 1541 ; while by the
inclusion of Nottinghamshire in Lincoln Diocese the see of York was
restricted to the archdeaconries of Cleveland and the East Riding and the
southern and eastern portions of the West Riding." The last Bishop of
Chester to bear rule in Yorkshire was John Bird Sumner (1828-48).
Charles Thomas Longley, head master of Harrow, became first Bishop of
Ripon (1836-56), and eventually, after translation to Durham (1856) and
York (1860), succeeded Sumner at Canterbury in 1862.

There is no very intimate connexion between Yorkshire and the early
history of the Tractarian movement, but the revival of Church life and practice
which that movement entailed speedily leavened the county. In spite of
Wesley’s insistence on the value of the sacraments, preaching was regarded
by the evangelical school in the Church as the main essential of public
worship, while the old-fashioned type of Churchman looked on any form of
change with disfavour. Weekly communion was once more established in
York Minster by Archbishop Harcourt, but not till 1841.7 Meanwhile a
voice was heard here and there in favour of a more exalted conception of the
history and duties of the Church. In 1819 the learned John Oxlee, rector of
Scawton, upheld the power of the keys in a sermon preached at Thirsk
before the diocesan chancellor, and in subsequent discourses and treatises
maintained the doctrine of apostolical succession and opposed Unitarian
opinions.* The greatest practical impetus to the principles of the Oxford
movement in Yorkshire was given by the appointment of Walter Farquhar
Hook in 1837 to the vicarage of Leeds. No startling developments in
ritual accompanied his ministry, but a new parish church, worthy of the
importance of the town, was built, active parochial work in schools and
institutes was started, and the frequent services of the church were accompanied
by increased dignity and reverence. In 1844 the great parish was subdivided
by Act of Parliament, and as a result of Hook’s incumbency some twenty

® Lawton, op. cit. 92, &c., under the various parishes, arranged according to the old rural deaneries.

" Thid. 135, 542, 543- % Ibid. 241, 191.

6 See details in the Appendix.

7 Ornsby, Dioc. Hist. York, 401 n.

18 See Dict. Nat. Biog. xliii, 17, and a notice by G. Wakeling, The Oxford Church Movement (1895),

17 seq.
77

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

churches were built within its boundaries, among which was St. Saviour’s,
built by the munificence of Dr. Pusey between 1842 and 1845. Hock
became Dean of Chichester in 1859: the church of All Souls, built 1876-80,
commemorates his work in Leeds. A later vicar of Leeds, John Russell
Woodford, is commemorated by the basilican church of St. Aidan, built
1892-4. Under Hook’s successors between thirty and forty new churches
have been built in Leeds, and his work has been continued with the same
moderation and tact. Other large parishes have found the benefit of the fre-
quent services, open churches, and general parochial activity of which Hook
was the pioneer in Leeds. Charles John Vaughan was vicar of Doncaster
from 1860 till 1869, where he began his work of training candidates for ordi-
nation. Among those parish priests whose work has been carried on on the
lines of more advanced Tractarianism should not be forgotten John Sharp,
vicar of Horbury from 1834 till 1899. The Evangelical school of thought,
less susceptible to the Oxford movement, has maintained a high position in
Yorkshire. Two Deans of Ripon, William Goode (18€0-3) and Hugh
McNeile (1868-75), have been famous as opponents of Tractarianism. The
Simeon Trustees acquired a large number of Yorkshire livings, including the
benefices of Beverley Minster, Bridlington, Trinity Church, Hull, and Shefheld;
and Hull, the birthplace of William Wilberforce, and Sheffield in particular
have been centres of spiritual thought and teaching of this type.

Thomas Musgrave (1847-60) was translated from Hereford to York on
the death of Archbishop Harcourt. In 1860 Longley came from Durham
and was translated to Canterbury two years later. His successor, the broad-
minded Evangelical, William Thomson (1863-90), translated from Gloucester
and Bristol, inaugurated a new era in the diocese by bringing himself more
closely into touch with his clergy and laity than had been the habit of the older
type of bishop. William Connor Magee, the brilliant preacher and orator,
translated from Peterborough in 1891, died very shortly after his translation,
and was succeeded by William Dalrymple Maclagan, previously Bishop of
Lichfield, who resigned the see in October 1908." Since 1836 most of the
important towns of Yorkshire, with the exception of York, Sheffield, Hull,
and the rapidly growing Middlesbrough, had lain in Ripon diocese, over
which, after Longley’s translation to Durham, an earnest evangelical, Robert
Bickersteth, previously Treasurer of Salisbury, had presided (1857-84). He
was succeeded by the present bishop, William Boyd Carpenter. In 1877 a
Bishoprics Act was passed, which provided for the formation of new sees
at Wakefield and three other English towns. The new bishopric, which
relieved Ripon of a large and populous district, was not actually founded till
1888, when the Bishop-suffragan of Bedford, William Walsham How,
became its first bishop. On his death in 1897 his successor was the
Bishop-suffragan of Dover, George Rodney Eden, who still rules the see.
The great area and population of the county call for further subdivision of
the sees of York and Ripon, and there is a prospect of a South Yorkshire see
before long, with its centre at Sheffield. The provisions of the Acts of 1534
and 1888~g have been utilized by the creation of three bishops-suffragan in
the diocese of York, bearing the titles of Hull, Beverley, and Sheffield, and

"° His successor is the Most Reverend Cosmo Gordon Lang, previously Bishop-suffragan of Stepney.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

one in the diocese of Ripon, who, taking his title under the old Act from
Penrith, was enabled by the amended Act to change it for that of Richmond.
A second bishop-suffragan has lately (1905) been appointed for Ripon diocese
with the title of Knaresborough. In the minsters of York and Ripon the
county possesses two noble cathedrals whose services are well maintained under
deans who are fully alive to the value of the treasures which they guard.
Fortunately in 1836 the cathedral of Ripon was able to begin its existence
with a full chapter, the gradual reduction of which to a dean and four
residentiaries was provided for by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Wake-
field Cathedral, starting life as a mere parish church, was not so happy, and
residentiary canonries still remain to be provided: the cathedral, however,
was enlarged in 1905 by a handsome eastern extension, and no pains have
been spared to make it worthy of its dignity. A clergy training school was
founded privately, as we have seen, by Dr. Vaughan at Doncaster, but this
was not a diocesan institution. In Ripon diocese there are two theological
colleges, the clergy school at Leeds founded in 1876 by the vicar, Dr. Gott,
afterwards Bishop of Truro, and the college at Ripon founded by the present
bishop in rg00. Of recent years the Community of the Resurrection has
established a training college for candidates for holy orders at Mirfield in
Wakefield Diocese.

Yorkshire was under the care of a vicar apostolic of the Church of
Rome until the erection of the Roman hierarchy in England. The West
Riding now constitutes the diocese of Leeds, while the North and East
Ridings, with the greater part of York, form the diocese of Middlesbrough.
A new cathedral has been built recently at Leeds. The most important
Roman establishment in the county is the Benedictine Abbey of Ampleforth
in the North Riding. Some of the more important Nonconformist colleges
and schools have been mentioned. To these may be added the Wesleyan
colleges at Sheffield, founded in 1838, and at Headingley, founded in 1867-8,
the Baptist college at Rawdon near Leeds, removed from Horton in 1859,
the Independent college at Bradford, founded 1888 by the amalgamation of
Airedale and Rotherham Colleges, both founded in 1856; and the Metho-
dist New Connexion college at Ranmoor near Sheffield, founded in 1863-4.
Among the oldest Nonconformist places of worship in the county is Mill
Hill Chapel in Leeds, originally Presbyterian, of which Ralph Thoresby, the
Leeds antiquary, was one of the proprietors.” This became Unitarian in the
course of the 18th century, and Dr. Priestley ministered here from 1767 to
1773. Upper Chapel at Sheffield, also Presbyterian, became Unitarian during
the 18th century.

® See Thoresby, Diary (ed. Hunter, 1830), i, 182, 206. The present chapel is a modern building.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

APPENDIX

ECCLESIASTICAL DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTY

At the time of the Conquest the whole of Yorkshire formed part of the diocese of York.
The date of its subdivision into archdeaconries is uncertain. Durandus the archdeacon is
among the witnesses of the deed by which the first Norman archbishop confirmed the
privileges of the church of Durham,’ and was present at the consecration of Anselm by
Thomas I.2. Conan the archdeacon appears as witness in 1088 to a deed executed by
Stephen, Earl of Brittany and Richmond.’ It seems highly probable that Durandus was Arch-
deacon of the church of York, and that Conan may have been archdeacon of the district
within the jurisdiction of Earl Stephen, and therefore the first recorded Archdeacon of Rich-
mond. William son of Durandus is the first possible Archdeacon of East Riding, about 1130 ;*
and an archdeacon with apparent jurisdiction over Cleveland occurs much about the same
period.© During the 12th century, at any rate, the territorial limits of the archdeaconries were
recognized. The agreement between Roger and Hugh Pudsey as to the jurisdiction of St. Cuth-
bert in Yorkshire mentions the archdeaconries of John son of Letold, of Geoffrey, and of the
treasurer.® The first of these was clearly the archdeaconry of Cleveland, and included the
churches of St. Cuthbert not only in the North Riding but also in the wapentake of Ouse and
Derwent, which was included in Cleveland Archdeaconry until so recently as 1896.’ The second
was the archdeaconry of York; the third the archdeaconry of East Riding, which continued an
appanage of the office of the treasurer until the time of Archbishop Gray. A document, probably
of rather later date, definitely mentions the archdeaconries of ‘ Austreing’ and ‘ Westreing ;° and,
during the quarrels of Geoffrey with the chapter, the various archdeacons, especially those of York,
Cleveland, and Richmond, played a principal part. Before the end of the 12th century, then, four
archdeaconries had been formed in Yorkshire, corresponding very nearly to the main civil divisions of
the county, the three Ridings and Richmondshire. The archdeaconry of Richmond, however,
included a vast tract of country in Lancashire, Westmorland, and South Cumberland, in addition
to its portion of Yorkshire.

The rural deaneries apparently came gradually into existence about the same time, with
boundaries conditioned to some extent by those of the wapentakes. The territorial area of
the deaneries is by no means usually defined where the deans are mentioned. For instance,
in one charter of Rievaulx Abbey of the 12th century, we find the signature of ‘ Engelramnus,
decanus de Ridale et Pikeringalith’ ; and it is not unlikely that ‘ Walterus, decanus de Bulemer’
may be another territorial designation.® But the ordinary style is represented by ‘ Robertus,
decanus de Helmeslac,’ which implies simply that the rural dean of the district was parson of,
or lived at, Helmsley." From the signature of Enzgelramnus it is evident that one rural deanery
could include more than one wapentake ; and in the arrangement of deaneries which we can
fairly state as existing by the middle of the 13th century there was by no means strict attention
to the actual boundaries of the civil divisions. The deaneries of the East Riding corresponded
with some exactness to the wapentakes whose names they bore, but certain wapentakes seem from
an early date to have been entirely merged in deaneries bearing other names. Thus the deanery
of Ainsty included, in addition to the Ainsty, the wapentakes of Barkston Ash, the greater part
of Skyrack, and that part of Claro Wapentake south of the Wharfe, that part north of the Wharfe
‘being in Boroughbridge Deanery. The wapentake of Birdforth was divided between three
deaneries, Hallikeld and Osgoldcross each between two.

‘Printed in Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 17 seq. The authenticity of this document may be ques-
tioned ; but, even if it is a forgery, the names of the witnesses must have some historical basis.

* Stubbs, Hist. C4. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 359; See Le Neve, Fasti Eccl. Angi. (ed. Hardy), ili, 130.

* Le Neve, op. cit. iii, 135. ‘Ibid. 141.

* See Atkinson, Rievaulx Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), 50 note, as to the uncertainty of the chronology of the
early Archdeacons of Cleveland.

* Printed in Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 79 seq.

7 John son of Letold signs the agreement as ‘ archidiaconus ecclesie Ebor.’

® Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 75 (Reg. Mag. Alb. iii, fol. 3, 4).

° Rievaulx Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), 174.

* Ibid. 82. Cf. 49, ‘Walterus decanus de Rudestein,’ i.e. Rudston in Dickering Wapentake ; C+//.
Topog. et Gen. 1838, v, 104 ; ‘Galfridus decanus de Forsett,’ &c. ‘Rogerus decanus de Katerich’ (Rieraulx
Chartul. 87 seq.) does not imply the existence of the deanery of Catterick under that name at this time :
Roger, parson of Catterick, was probably dean of a district corresponding to the later deanery of that name.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

A list of contributions from the diocese towards the expenses of the crusade undertaken by
Edward I before his accession to the throne is contained in Archbishop Giffard’s register."
The names are arranged under the four archdeaconries, and fifteen of the deaneries of the diocese
are mentioned under the names which they bore until their subdivision in modern times. In
Richmond Archdeaconry, the deanery of Lancaster is named twice, but the second time
‘ Loncastre ‘ is probably an error for Lonsdale. The deanery of Boroughbridge is not mentioned,
but this is included before the end of the century in Pope Nicholas’ Taxation. This disposes
of the seventeen deaneries of the diocese in Yorkshire, whose extent is set forth below. About
the third quarter of the 13th century, therefore, that arrangement of deaneries was in working
order which was to continue for nearly six centuries, until the growth of population, and the
natural tendency to divide the burden of responsibility, led to the inevitable removal of historic
landmarks.

The list in question places under special headings persons coming under the jurisdiction of
‘ Beverlacum,’ i.e. the chapter of Beverley, the provostry of Beverley, the deanery of Whitby
Strand, the liberty of Selby Abbey, the liberty of the Dean of York, and the liberty of Howden.
The deanery of Whitby Strand may be identified with the liberty of Whitby Abbey ; but the parishes
of Whitby Strand Liberty were usually after this date divided between the deaneries of Cleveland and
Dickering, and no further mention of the deanery occurs. The remaining divisions were peculiar
jurisdictions, over which a dean or an official with decanal power was appointed. The archbishops
appointed their own deans in their liberties and bailiwicks; a number of these appointments
are to be found in Archbishop Romanus’ register. ‘The convent of Durham appointed a custos
of their spiritualities in Howdenshire and Allertonshire, who was instituted by the archbishop.”
The peculiars belonging to the Dean and Chapter of York lay scattered about the county : among
the benefices held by William de Walcote, clerk and receiver to Queen Philippa, in 1353, was
that of the archdeaconry of St. Peter’s, York,** which may imply that the liberty of St. Peter, like
other large and scattered jurisdictions, had its own archdeacon. ‘These peculiar jurisdictions, in
some cases, continued their existence in the shape of courts for purposes of administration long
after the offices to which they were attached were dissolved. Eventually, they were gradually
included within the limits of the rural deaneries.

In 1541 the archdeaconry of Richmond passed from the diocese of York to that of Chester.
In 1836 the Yorkshire portion of this archdeaconry, with the archbishop’s liberty of Ripon,
and the deanery of Craven, most of the deanery of Pontefract, and eventually the western part of
the deanery of Doncaster, from the archdeaconry of York, were formed into the diocese of Ripon.
In 1888 the portions of the old deaneries of Pontefract and Doncaster just alluded to were formed
into the diocese of Wakefield. The archdeaconries of the diocese of Ripon were at first Richmond
(including Ripon) and Craven. The northern part of Wakefield Diocese forms the archdeaconry
of Halifax, the southern part is the archdeaconry of Huddersfield. The archdeaconries of
Craven and Richmond were curtailed in 1894 by the creation of a new archdeaconry of
Ripon corresponding to the south-eastern part of the diocese; but in 1905 the north-western
boundaries of this archdeaconry were slightly re-arranged, and a new deanery of Nidderdale
erected in the archdeaconry of Richmond.

A new archdeaconry of Sheffield was formed in 1884 from the most populous portion
of the old deanery of Doncaster. In the diocese of York there are thus four archdeaconries, in
that of Ripon, three, and in that of Wakefield, two.

In the following account of the rural deaneries, mediaeval parishes only are men-
tioned under each heading; but where necessary, the names of mediaeval chapelries have
been given, and any local discrepancies between ecclesiastical and civil divisions have been
noted. Owing to the very large number of modern ecclesiastical parishes and districts, and
their occasional origin from two or three old parishes, no attempt has been made to enumerate
them.

The archdeaconry of York or West Riding comprised the city and Ainsty of York, and the
whole of the West Riding with the following exceptions :—

(1) Acaster Selby, in the Ainsty, formed part of the parish of Stillingfleet in
the archdeaconry of Cleveland and deanery of Bulmer. In 1861, being now a separate
benefice, it was united with the deanery of Ainsty, and in 1869 became part of the
deanery of Bishopthorpe, but still remained under the jurisdiction of the Archdeacon of
Cleveland. Since the dissolution of the deanery of Bishopthorpe (1896) it has been

" York Reg. Giffard (Surt. Soc. cix), 277 seq.
1213 Special sections of Reg. Romanus are devoted to the bailiwicks in the archbishop’s jurisdiction, and

to the spiritualities of Howden and Allerton.
4 Cal. Papal Pet. i, 243. But William de Walcote was at this time Archdeacon of East Riding (Le
Neve, Fasti, iii, 142), and probably this is the office referred to.

3 81 II

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

in the deanery of Ainsty, and since its union with Appleton Roebuck (previously in
Bolton Percy parish) in 1875 has been part of the archdeaconry of York.

(2) Eighteen parishes in Claro Wapentake were in the archdeaconry of Richmond and
deanery of Boroughbridge, in connexion with which their subsequent division will be
found treated. Kirkby Malzeard, also in Claro, was in the archdeaconry of Richmond
and deanery of Catterick.

(3) The wapentake of Ewcross (four parishes) was in the archdeaconry of Richmond
and deanery of Lonsdale.

(4) The parish of Rossington, in the soke of Doncaster, and in Strafforth and Tick-
hill Wapentake, Bawtry and Austerfield, parts of the parish of Blyth, and Auckley
and Blaxton, parts of the parish of Finningley, formed part of the archdeaconry of
Nottingham and deanery of Retford. In 1836 these portions of the county were
transferred to the diocese of Lincoln. Rossington was united to the deanery of Doncaster
in 1856; but the remaining places continued outside the diocese of York, and now
form part of the diocese of Southwell, archdeaconry of Nottingham, and deanery of
Bawtry.

(5) The chapelry of Saddleworth, in Agbrigg Wapentake, formed a division of the
parish of Rochdale from early times, in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, archdeaconry
of Chester, and deanery of Manchester. In 1541 it became part of the diocese of
Chester, and is now, with its daughter parishes, in the diocese and archdeaconry of
Manchester, and deanery of Ashton-under-Lyne.”®

(6) The chapelry of Whitewell, in Staincliffe Wapentake, was part of the parish of
Whalley, in the diocgse of Coventry and Lichfield as above. In 1541 it became part of
the diocese of Chester, and is now a benefice in the diocese of Manchester, archdeaconry
of Blackburn, and deanery of Whalley.

The following peculiar jurisdictions were locally within the limits of the archdeaconry, or in
parts of the West Riding adjacent to it :—

(1) The archbishop’s liberty of Ripon included the parish of Ripon with its
chapelries,’® extending into the wapentake of Claro. In 1541, though locally isolated from
the diocese of York, it remained a peculiar of the archbishop, and so continued until the
formation of the diocese of Ripon in 1836, when it became part of the deanery of
Boroughbridge. The rural deanery of Ripon, originally formed in 1848, is now composed
of the greater part of the old parish, with the addition of Kirkby Malzeard and Masham,
but the north-western extremities of the parish, including Pateley Bridge, were given in
1905 to Nidderdale deanery in the archdeaconry of Richmond.”

(2) The Dean and Chapter of York had peculiar jurisdiction of the following parishes
in York :—St. Andrew, St. John del Pyke, St. John Hungate, St. John the Evangelist,
St. Lawrence, St. Mary Bishophill the Younger with Copmanthorpe and Over Poppleton,
St. Martin Coney Street with St. Michael-le-Belfry, and St. Sampson (appropriated to the
vicars-choral in 1393). By the union of 1585 St. Wilfrid’s appears to have become part
of their peculiar, in commoi with other suppressed rectories, and St. Nicholas’, at any
rate after 1644, was reckoned in it. Brotherton was also a peculiar of the dean and
chapter.'8

(3) The following parishes were in the peculiar jurisdiction of the dignitaries and
prebendaries of the church of York, contentious jurisdiction being reserved to the dean
and chapter: Mexborough with Ravenfield chapelry,’® Archdeacon of York ; Handsworth,
and Laughton-en-le-\lorthen with its chapelries of Anston, Firbeck, Letwell with
Gildingwells, Thorpe St. John’s, Thorpe Salvin, and Wales,” Chancellor of York (prebend
of Laughton appropriated 1484) ; Acomb,” Treasurer of York ; ” Bilton Ainsty,?* Preben-

6 Formerly part of the deanery of Manchester.

6 i.e. the prebendal churches of Studley Magna (Claro), Bishop Monkton, Sharow, and Skelton. There
were also chapels of later origin at Bishop Thornton, Pateley Bridge, and Winksley-cum-Grantley (the last
in Claro).

Modern divisions of the old parish of Ripon : (1) Archdeaconry of Ripon, deanery of Ripon ; Ripon
and ten new parishes or districts ; (2) Archdeaconry of Richmond, deanery of Nidderdale ; two new parishes
and part of another.

* The peculiars of the chapter and prebendaries formed the liberty of St. Peter.

18 Locally in the deanery of Doncaster. 0 Thid.

" Locally in the deanery of Ainsty.

* The treasurership was dissolved in 1547; but the peculiar court of Acomb continued to exist for
purposes of probate and administration.

*3 Locally in the deanery of Ainsty.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

dary of Bilton ; Bramham,™ Prebendary of Bramham ; % St. Maurice without Monkgate,”®
Kirk Fenton, and Sherburn with Micklefield chapelry,”” Prebendary of Fenton ; Wadworth,”
Prebendary of South Cave ; * Kirkby Wharfe,®° Prebendary of Wetwang; Wistow with
the parochial chapelries of Cawood and Monk Fryston,®! Prebendary of Wistow.

(4) The Abbot and convent of Selby had peculiar jurisdiction of Selby,®? Snaith with
its chapels, Adlingfleet ** (appropriated to Selby in 1307), Brayton,** and Whitgift,® and
certain other places. This appears by a decree of Archbishop Bowet’s chancellor in
1409.°° Brayton was temporarily appropriated by Archbishop Romanus to the archdeaconry
of York, and Harswell (E.R.) was appropriated to Selby, apparently in compensation.*”
Brayton appears to have reverted to the jurisdiction of Selby. After the surrender of
Selby Abbey in 1539, Selby and Brayton formed the peculiar court of Selby, while Whit-
gift, and Snaith with its chapelries of Airmyn, Carlton, Goole, Hook, and Rawcliffe,
formed the peculiar court of Snaith.®®

The deaneries in the archdeaconry of York were five in number, viz. Christianity of York,
Ainsty, Craven, Doncaster, and Pontefract.

(1) The deanery of the Christianity of York embraced the city of York with its
immediate suburbs, including portions of the Ainsty and North and East Ridings.®® Pope
Nichola’ Taxation of 1291 names the following churches: All Saints in North Street, All
Saints in the Marsh,” St. Crux, St. Dennis, St. George, Holy Trinity in King’s Court, Holy
Trinity in Micklegate, St. Nicholas, St. Martin in Micklegate, St. Michael at the Bridge,*!
St. Olave, and St. Saviour. In addition to these, the Valor Ecclesiasticus names All Saints
Peaseholme, Holy Trinity in Goodramgate, St. Helen on the Walls, St. Helen in Stonegate,
St. Margaret, St. Mary Bishophill the Elder, St. Mary in Castlegate, St. Peter the Little,
St. Peter-le-Willows, and St. Wilfrid. These parishes, with one or two others omitted in
both lists, had absorbed other parishes during the mediaeval period, and were re-arranged
entirely by the union of 1585.

(2) The deanery of Ainsty included the Ainsty of York, with the exception of Acaster
Selby and the chapelries already accounted for; the wapentake of Barkston Ash ; the
greater part of the wapentake of Skyrack; and the southern part of that of Claro. The
following churches are mentioned in Pope Nicholas’ Taxation :—(a) in the Ainsty : Acaster
Malbis, Askham Bryan, Askham Richard, Bilbrough, Bolton Percy, Healaugh, Hutton
Wandesley (or Long Marston), Moor Monkton, Rufforth, Wighill ; (4) in Barkston Ash ;
Birkin, Drax, Ledsham, Newton Kyme, Ryther, Saxton, Tadcaster ;*? (c) in Skyrack :
Aberford,** Adel, Barwick-in-Elmet, Garforth, Guiseley, Harewood, Kippax, Leeds, Swilling-
ton, Thorner, Whitkirk; (d) in Claro: Cowthorpe, Fewston, Kirk Deighton, Kirkby
Ferrers (i.e. Kirkby Overblow), Leathley, Pannal, Spofforth.“* In addition to these, the
Valor Ecclesiasticus mentions, exclusive of peculiars: (a) Bishopthorpe, Thorp Arch ;*
(c) Bardsey, Collingham, Otley ; (¢) Hampsthwaite,** Weston.

In the deanery of Ainsty were locally included the archbishop’s deaneries of Otley and
Sherburn, and in the chantry returns of the reign of Henry VIII the three deaneries are

4 Locally in the deanery of Ainsty.

> This prebend, appropriated to the Prior of Nostell, was dissolved in 1540, when Bramham became part
of the peculiar of the dean and chapter.

6 Locally in the deanery of the Christianity of York.

7 Locally in the deanery of Ainsty. 8 Locally in the deanery of Doncaster.

This prebend was alienated by its last incumbentin 1549, The peculiar court of Wadworth main-
tained an independent existence. ® Locally in the deanery of Ainsty.

31 Ibid. # Tbid. % Locally in the deanery of Pontefract.

% Locally in the deanery of Ainsty. > Locally in the deanery of Pontefract.

38 Lawton, op. cit. 5.

57 See note 53, p. 34. The appropriation of Harswell was only temporary: the chapelries of Brayton
were appropriated to Selby by Romanus (see note 48, p. 34). % Lawton, loc. cit.

39 viz. Copmanthorpe, Over Poppleton, and part of Dringhouses (Ainsty), Clifton and Heworth (North
Riding), Fulford and Naburn (East Riding). ;

“i.e, All Saints’, Pavement. lie. St. Michael Spurriergate.

“2 Oxton and Catterton, in this parish, are in the Ainsty.

8 Partly in Barkston Ash.

“ The Eccksiastical Taxation also mentions Bilton, Brayton, and Selby, subsequently peculiars.

‘8 Walton, probably a chapel to Thorp Arch (see Lawton, op. cit. 81), is mentioned in neither survey
as a separate benefice.

“ At the time of the 1291 taxation Hampsthwaite was in the deanery of Boroughbridge and arch-
deaconry of Richmond. It was regarded in the earlier part of the 13th century as a chapel of Aldborough :

see Cal. Pat. 1225-32, p. 174. ;
: 83

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

included under one head." Subsequently the parishes of Adel, Guiseley, Leeds, and Otley
(Skyrack), and Fewston, Hampsthwaite, Leathley, Pannal, and Weston (Claro), with their
chapelries,** were formed into the deanery of Old Ainsty ; while the remainder were
comprised in that of New Ainsty.

(3) The deanery of Craven embraced the wapentake ot Staincliffe, with the parishes
of Bingley and Ilkley * in Skyrack Wapentake. The following churches are mentioned in
the Ecclesiastical Taxation : Addingham, Arncliffe, Bolton-in-Craven,” Bracewell, Broughton,
Burnsall, Carlton, Gargrave, Giggleswick, Gisburn, Keighley, Kildwick, Kirby Malham,
Linton, Long Preston, Marton, Great Mitton, Skipton, Slaidburn, and Thornton ; Bingley
and Ilkley. To these should be added Gilkirk,*! Horton-in-Ribblesdale,®? and Kettlewell.*

(4) The deanery of Doncaster embraced the soke of Doncaster, with the exception
of Rossington ; the wapentake of Strafforth and Tickhill, with the exceptions already
mentioned as in the archdeaconry of Nottingham ; the greater portion of the wapentake of
Staincross ; and part of the wapentake of Osgoldcross. ‘The following churches, exclusive
of peculiars, are mentioned in Pope Nicholas’ Taxation. Adwick-le-Street, Adwick-on-
Dearne, Arksey, Armthorpe, Aston, Barnby-on-Don, Barnbrough, Bolton-on-Dearne,
Braithwell, Brodsworth, Cantley, Conisbrough, Darfield, Dinnington, Doncaster, Eccles-
field, Edlington,®* Fishlake, Harthill, Hatfield, Hickleton, Hooton Pagnell, Hooton Roberts,
Maltby, Melton-on-the-Hill, Rawmarsh, Rotherham, Sandal Parva,"® Sheffield, Sprotbrough,
Thrybergh, Thurnscoe, Tickhill, Todwick, Treeton, Warmsworth, Wath-on-Dearne,
Whiston, and Wickersley, in Strafforth and Tickhill; Darton, Felkirk, Hemsworth, High
Hoyland, Penistone, Royston, Silkstone, and Tankersley, in Staincross; Badsworth,
Burghwallis, Campsall, Kirk Bramwith, Kirk Smeaton, Owston, and South Kirkby, in
Osgoldcross. Stainton, originally a chapelry of Tickhill, is mentioned in the Valor
Ecclesiasticus as a separate benefice ; and Marr, a chapelry of Hickleton, appears to have
been accounted parochial before the Reformation.”

(5) The deanery of Pontefract embraced the northern and eastern portions of the
wapentake of Osgoldcross ; the wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley with the exception ot
the chapelry of Saddleworth ; and a small portion of the wapentake of Staincross. The
following churches are mentioned in Pope Nicholas’ Taxation: Ackworth, Adlingflect,
Castleford, Darrington, Featherstone, Ferry Fryston, Kellington, Pontefract, and Womersley,
in Osgoldcross ; °° Almondbury, Batley, Birstal, Bradford, Calverley, Crofton, Dewsbury,
Emley, Halifax, Huddersfield, Kirkburton, Kirkheaton, Methley, Mirfield, Normanton,
Rothwell, Sandal Magna, Thornhill, Wakefield, Warmfield, and Woodkirk, in Agbrigg and
Morley. To these should be added Whitgift,® in Osgoldcross, mentioned in the Valor
Ecclestasticus ; East Ardsley, in Agbrigg and Morley ; and Wragby,” in Osgoldcross and
Staincross wapentakes.

The Archdeaconry of East Riding comprised the whole of the East Riding, with the exception
of the wapentake of Ouse and Derwent. Fulford and Naburn, in this wapentake, were chapelries
in the deanery of the Christianity of York and York archdeaconry : the rest of the wapentake was
in the archdeaconry of Cleveland and deanery of Bulmer. Portions of the wapentake of Pickering
Lythe and the liberty of Whitby Strand, in the North Riding, were included in the archdeaconry of
East Riding.

The following peculiar jurisdictions were locally within the limits of the archdeaconry :

(1) The jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of York included Bishop Burton,
Bubwith,” Burton Pidsea,* Helperthorpe,® and Weaverthorpe.™

Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 211.

“Old chapels existing before the time of the Commonwealth were as follows: Thruscross (Fewston) ;
Horsforth (Guiseley) ; Thornthwaite (Hampsthwaite) ; Leeds St. John, Beeston, Bramley, Chapel Allerton,
Farnley, Headingley, Holbeck, Hunslet (Leeds) ; Baildon, Burley, Denton, Farnley, Pool (Otley).

“ Part of Ilkley is in the wapentake of Claro, in which also are included parts of Addingham,
Burnsall, and Skipton. © i.e. Bolton-by-Bowland.

5} ie. St. Mary-le-Gill, at Barno!dswick. * Horton is partly in Ewcross Wapentake.

No returns for the deanery of Craven remain in Valor Eccl. ; but the printed edition (Rec. Com.), v,
143, gives the returns from the Lider Vabrum, in which Gilkirk and Horton appear as curacies.

®t Worsborough, formerly a chapelry of Darfield, is in Staincross Wapentake.

5 Now united with Warmsworth. ie. Kirk Sandall.

* See Lawton, Coll. 206. Frickley with Clayton (ibid. 195) should also be mentioned ; it was a parish
church at the time of the Parliamentary Survey.

*$ Also Snaith, a peculiar of Selby Abbey at a later date. * Formerly peculiar,

® A donative chapelry after the dissolution of Nostell Priory.

§ Locally in the deanery of Harthill. * Locally in the deanery of Holderness.

* Originally a chapel of Weaverthorpe. “ Locally in the deanery of Buckrose.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

(2) The peculiar of the Dean of York included Kilnwick Percy, Kilham,® and
Pocklington with its old chapelries of Allerthorpe with Thornton, Barnby Moor with
Fangfoss, Hayton with Belby, and Millington with Givendale.®

(3) The following parishes were in the peculiar jurisdiction of the dignitaries and
prebendaries of the church of York, with contentious jurisdiction reserved to the dean and
chapter : Mappleton,? Archdeacon of East Riding ; Great and Little Driffield, Precentor of
York (prebend of Driffield appropriated 1485); Wawne® and East Acklam,” Chancellor of
York ; Preston-in-Holderness, Sub-Dean of York; Tunstall,” Sub-Chanter of York ;
Bishop Wilton,” Treasurer of York (prebend of Bishop Wilton appropriated 1241);
Wharram-le-Street,"* Prebendary of Bramham ; 7° Bugthorpe,’ Prebendary of Bugthorpe ;
Holme-on-the-Wolds ” and Withernwick,”* Prebendary of Holme ; Langtoft with Cottam ”
chapelry and North Grimston,® Prebendary of Langtoft ; North Newbald,®! Prebendary of
North Newbald; South Cave,® Prebendary of South Cave ;® Weighton with Shipton
chapelry,* Prebendary of Weighton; Elloughton,® Fridaythorpe, and Wetwang with
Fimber chapelry,** Prebendary of Wetwang.

(4) The peculiar of the Prior and convent of Durham included Brantingham with
Ellerker chapelry, Eastrington, Howden with its chapelries,®? Walkington, and Welton.®

(5) The provostry of Beverley was a peculiar jurisdiction including the churches of
Beverley, Cherry Burton, Leconfield, Middleton-on-the-Wolds, Scorborough, and South
Dalton, in Harthill Wapentake ; and Brandesburton, Halsham, Leven, Patrington, Rise, and
Welwick in Holderness. Ottringham, mentioned by Lawton, is not included in the list
given in Pope Nichola’ Taxation.

The deaneries of the archdeaconry of East Riding were four in number, viz., Buckrose,
Dickering, Harthill, and Holderness.

(1) The deanery of Buckrose was co-extensive with the wapentake of the same name.
The following churches, exclusive of peculiars, are named in Pope Nicholas’ Taxation :
Birdsall, Burythorpe, Cowlam, Kirby Grindalythe, Kirby Underdale, Langton, Norton,
Rillington, Scrayingham, Settrington, Sherburn-in-Harford-Lythe, Skirpenbeck, Thorpe
Bassett, West Heslerton, Westow,® Wharram Percy, Wintringham, and Yedingham ;
Sledmere is mentioned neither here nor in the Valor Ecclesiasticus.

(2) The deanery of Dickering comprised the wapentake of Dickering, a portion of the
wapentake of Harthill, and portions, in the North Riding, of the wapentake of Pickering
Lythe and liberty of Whitby Strand. The following churches, excluding peculiars, are
mentioned in Pope Nicholas’ Taxation: Argam, Boynton, Bridlington, Burton Agnes,
Burton Fleming,*® Carnaby,® Filey,®? Flamborough, Folkton, Foston-on-the-Wolds,
Foxholes, Ganton, Garton-on-the-Wolds, Hunmanby, Lowthorpe, Nafferton, Rudston,
Thwing, Willerby, and Wold Newton,® in Dickering Wapentake ; Scalby, Scarborough,
and Seamer, in Pickering Lythe, and Hackness in Whitby Strand. To these should be
added Muston,®* Reighton,® and Ruston Parva, in Dickering.®

(3) The deanery of Harthill included the wapentake of Harthill with the greater part
of the extra-urban portion of the county of Kingston-upon-Hull,” and the wapentake of

aT ocally in the deanery of Harthill. 6° Locally in the deanery of Dickering.

6 Locally in the deanery of Harthill. 7 Locally in the deanery of Holderness.
Locally in the deanery of Dickering. * Locally in the deanery of Holderness.

70 Locally in the deanery of Buckrose. ™ Locally in the deanery of Holderness. ® Thid.
73 Locally in the deanery of Harthill. * Locally in the deanery of Buckrose.

See note 25. Locally in the deanery of Buckrose.

7 Locally in the deanery of Harthill. 78 Locally in the deanery of Holderness.

79 Locally in the deanery of Dickering. *° Locally in the deanery of Buckrose.

® Locally in the deanery of Harthill. * Tbid. 8 See note 29.

% Locally in the deanery of Harthill. * Tbid. ® Locally in the deanery of Buckrose.

8 viz, the prebendal chapels of Barmby Marsh and Laxton.
® The remaining members of this peculiar will be found in connexion with the archdeaconry of Cleve-
land. Pope Nicholas’ Taxation enumerates them under the heading ‘Prebendar’ Hoveden, et spiritual’ de

Hovedensh’.’ 8 Ecclesia Sancte Marie de Mora.
% Originally a chapel of Hunmanby. * Thid.
% The church and part of the parish are in Pickering Lythe wapentake, N. R. eee
% Originally a chapel of Hunmanby. “ Tbid. ® Thid.

% Ruston Parva is not mentioned in the Vabr Eccl. (Rec. Com.). Pope Nicholas’ Taxation mentions
‘parva Kelk’ in addition to the churches above (Rec. Com. 336). ;

” Hull appears to have been in this deanery originally, as a chapel of Hessle ; and is reckoned as such
in the Lider Valorum. At.the time of the erection of the diocese of Ripon, when Lawton’s Collections first
appeared, Hull was a member of the deanery of Holderness.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Howdenshire.* The following churches, exclusive of peculiars, are mentioned in Pope
Nichola’ Taxation: Aughton, Bainton, Bubwith, Burnby, Catton, Cottingham, Ellerton,
Etton, Everingham, Full Sutton, Goodmanham, Harswell, Holme-on-Spalding-Moor,
Hotham, Huggate, Hutton Cranswick, Kilnwick-on-the-Wolds, Kirkburn, Lockington,
Londesborough, Lund, North Cave, North Dalton, Nunburnholme, Rowley, Sancton, Skerne,
Sutton-on-Derwent, Warter, Watton, Wressell, in Harthill ; Hessle, Kirk Ella,®® and North
Ferriby, in Hullshire. To these should be added Wilberfoss, in Harthill.

(4) The deanery of Holderness included the wapentake of Holderness with the town
and a portion of the county of Hull.’ The following churches, exclusive of peculiars, are
mentioned in Pope Nicholas’ Taxation: Aldbrough, Atwick, Barmston, Beeford, Birstal,’
Catwick, Colden Parva, Easington, Garton, Goxhill, Hilston, Hornsea, Humbleton, Keying-
ham, Kilnsea, North Frodingham, Ottringham, Owthorne, Paull with Thorngumbald chapelry,
Roos, Routh, Skeckling with Burstwick and Ryhill chapelries, Skipsea, Sproatley, Sutton-on-
Hull, Swine, Winestead, and Withernsea.!°* To these should be added Holmpton,
Marfleet, Nunkeeling, Ulrome, Riston, and Withernsea.1°> Hull seems to have entered the
deanery at a later date.

The archdeaconry of Cleveland embraced the wapentake of Ouse and Derwent in the East
Riding, with the exception of Fulford and Naburn; a small portion of the Ainsty of York; and
the whole of the North Riding west of Richmondshire, with the exception of (1) Over Dinsdale
and Girsby, portions of the parish of Sockburn, in the diocese and archdeaconry of Durham, and
deanery of Darlington ; (2) Appleton Wiske, in Langbaurgh Wapentake, a chapelry of Great
Smeaton in the archdeaconry and deanery of Richmond ; (3) small portions of the wapentake of
Allertonshire included in the parishes of Pickhill and Wath, archdeaconry of Richmond and °
deanery of Catterick; and (4) a small portion of the wapentake of Bulmer, close to York. In
1896 the portion of the East Riding within the archdeaconry was transferred to the archdeaconry
of the East Riding.

Peculiar jurisdictions locally within the limits of the archdeaconry were as follows :—

(1) The peculiar of the Dean of York included Pickering with its old parochial chapelries
of Allerston with Ebberston, Ellerburn with Wilton, and Goathland.!®

(2) The following parishes were within the peculiar jurisdiction of the dignitaries and
prebendaries of the church of York, viz.: Alne, Skelton, and Wigginton,!° Treasurer of
York ; 7 Ampleforth 1° and Heslington,!°° Prebendary of Ampleforth; Stockton-on-the-
Forest,"° Prebendary of Bugthorpe ; Husthwaite with Carlton chapelry,"! Prebendary of
Husthwaite; Gate Helmsley,"? Prebendary of Osbaldwick ; Riccall,”% Prebendary of
Riccall ; Salton,* Prebendary of Salton ; 1! Stillington,"® Prebendary of Stillington ; Osbald-
wick with Murton chapelry,’” and Strensall with Haxby chapelry,"* Prebendary of Strensall;
Warthill,'? Prebendary of Warthill.

(3) The peculiar of the Bishop of Durham in Allerton and Allertonshire included
Birkby with Hutton Bonville chapelry, Cowesby, Leake with Nether Silton chapelry, North
Otterington, Osmotherley, and Thornton-le-Street.’° | Crayke, locally in the wapentake of
Bulmer, was reckoned a member of the bishopric of Durham until 1841.

(4) The peculiar of the prior and convent in the same district included Northallerton
with its chapelries, Kirby Sigston, and West Rounton. Their jurisdiction in the East
Riding extended over Hemingbrough, Holtby, and Skipwith, locally in the deanery of Bulmer.

** Locally in this deanery, but a peculiar of the Prior and convent (afterwards Dean and Chapter) of
Durham.

* Elneley, Olveley (sic). ‘ Elveley’ is the usual form.

® The Valor Ecc/. (Rec. Com.) is wanting for a great part of the deanery of Harthill. The Lider Valorum
mentions the convent of Wilberfoss, to which the parish church was appropriated.

*! Probably a late inclusion. See note 97 above.

'? Or Skeffling. 1022 Hollym was a chapel of Withernsea.

*S Marfleet is not mentioned in Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.). Riston formed a joint benefice with Hornsea.

viz. Holme and West Rounton in Pickhill ; and Norton Conyers, in Wath.

% Locally in the deanery of Ryedale.

6 Locally in the deanery of Bulmer.

'7 See note 22. After the dissolution of the treasurership, these places formed a separate peculiar
jurisdiction.

* Locally in the deanery of Ryedale. 1 Locally in the deanery of Bulmer.
N° Locally in the deanery of Bulmer, ™ Tbid,

"? Ibid. 3 Thid. "6 Tbid.

"§ Prebend annexed to priory of Hexham, and dissolved 1540.

4S Locally in the deanery of Bulmer. M7 Thid.

M8 Thid. N9 hid. Locally in the deanery of Cleveland.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

The deaneries of the archdeaconry of Cleveland were three in number, viz. Bulmer, Cleveland,
and Ryedale.

(1) The deanery of Bulmer comprised the wapentake of Bulmer, with the exception
of the immediate suburbs of York ; and parts of the wapentakes of Birdforth and Allerton-
shire ;”" the wapentake of Ouse and Derwent in the East Riding, with exceptions already
noted ; and Acaster Selby in the Ainsty of York, being part of the parish of Stillingfleet.
The following churches, excluding peculiars, are mentioned in the Ecclesiastical Taxation :
Bossall,'”? Brafferton,”* Brandsby, Bulmer, Crambe, Dalby, Easingwold, Foston, Huntington,
Myton-upon-Swale, Newton-upon-Ouse, Over Helmsley, Overton, Sheriff Hutton, Sutton-
on-the-Forest, Terrington, Thormanby, Whenby, and Wigginton, in Bulmer Wapentake ;
Coxwold with Over Silton chapelry, Feliskirk, Kirby Knowle, South Kilvington,! South
Otterington, and Thirsk, in Birdforth ; Sessay,in Allertonshire ; and Dunnington, Elvington,
Stillingfleet, and Wheldrake, in Ouse and Derwent. To these should be added Marton-
on-the-Forest, in Bulmer ; Topcliffe, in Birdforth ;"° and Thorganby, in Ouse and
Derwent.1””

(2) The deanery of Cleveland embraced the liberty of Langbaurgh, the greater part of
the liberty of Whitby Strand and wapentake of Allertonshire, and a portion of the wapen-
take of Birdforth. The following churches, exclusive of peculiars, are mentioned in
Pope Nicholas’ Taxation: Great Ayton, Crathorne, Danby, Easington, Guisborough,
Hinderwell, Rudby, Ingleby Arncliffe, Ingleby Greenhow, Kildale, Kirkby in Cleveland,
Kirkleatham, Kirk Leavington, Lofthouse, Lythe with its chapels,”® Marske, Marton,
Middlesbrough,”® Ormsby, Skelton, Stainton, and Stokesley, in Langbaurgh ; Fylingdales,
Sneaton, and Whitby with Eskdale chapel, in Whitby Strand; Hawnby and Welbury, in
Birdforth. To these should be added Carlton-in-Cleveland and Yarm, in Langbaurgh.!°

(3) The deanery of Ryedale embraced the wapentake of Ryedale, the greater part of
the wapentake of Pickering Lythe, anda portion of the wapentake of Birdforth. The following
churches excluding peculiars, are mentioned in Pope Nicholas’ Taxation: Appleton-le-
Street, Barton-le-Street,*! Great Edston, East Gilling, Helmsley, Hovingham,’” Kirkby
Moorside, Kirkdale, Lastingham, Old Malton, Normanby, Nunnington, Oswaldkirk,
Scawton, Slingsby, and Stonegrave, in Ryedale; Brompton, Hutton Bushell, Kirby
Misperton, Levisham, Middleton, Sinnington,¥? Thornton Dale, and Wykeham, in
Pickering Lythe.

The archdeaconry of Richmond included, within the limits of modern Yorkshire, the wapen-
takes of Gilling East and West, Hang East and West, the wapentake of Hallikeld, now
in the North Riding; and, in the West Riding, the wapentake of Ewcross and the
northern part of that of Claro. The extraordinary privileges of the Archdeacon of Richmond
are enumerated in an agreement made in 1331 between the archdeacon and Archbishop Melton :
they included the custody of vacant benefices, power of sequestration, examination and confirmation
of elections to benefices, institution and induction of incumbents, examination and presentation of
candidates for orders, and other privileges which, so far as the other archdeaconries were concerned,
resided with the archbishop."*# In 1541 the archdeaconry became part of the new diocese of
Chester. Its Yorkshire portion was detached in 1836 to form the archdeaconry of Richmond in
the diocese of Ripon. In 1894 the archdeaconry was subdivided: the new archdeaconry of
Ripon took its southern portion, while the parishes in Ewcross Wapentake were transferred to the
archdeaconry of Craven.

11 Allertonshire was divided into the peculiar jurisdictions of the Bishop and convent of Durham.

122 Part of this parish is in Birdforth Wapentake. % Part of this parish is in Hallikeld Wapentake.

14 Wigginton had not yet become a member of the treasurer’s peculiar.

1 Qmelington (sic) : a later note has Kinelergton (sic).

186 Dishforth and Marton-le-Moor, chapelries of Topcliffe, are in Hallikeld Wapentake.

27 Topcliffe is mentioned in Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com. v, 101). It was appropriated to the fabric of the
church of York, and seems therefore to have been within the jurisdiction of the dean and chapter.

8 viz, Egton, and possibly Ugthorpe.

29 Middlesbrough was a cell of Whitby Abbey, situated locally in the parish of West Acklam, formerly a
chapelry of Stainton. West Acklam is probably meant here: but at the time of the Valr Eccl. (Rec. Com.
v, 80) the church was still regarded asa chapel.

480'These churches, however, were probably chapels, Carlton of Hutton Rudby, Yarm of Kirk
Leavington. See Lawton, op. cit. pp. 477,510. Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com. 335) also includes the castle
church of Whorlton among the churches of the deanery.

131 Coneysthorpe, in this parish, is in Bulmer Wapentake.

137 Scackleton, in this parish, is in Bulmer Wapentake.

133 Little Edston, in this parish, is in Ryedale Wapentake. ™ Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 248 seq.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The following peculiar jurisdictions were locally within the limits of the archdeaconry.

(1) The peculiar of the Dean and chapter of York included Aldborough with Dunsforth
Chapel, Burton Leonard,'** and Hornby.!**

(2) The following parishes were in the peculiar jurisdiction of the dignitaries and pre-
bendaries of the church of York: Little Ouseburn,’”” Precentor of York ; Knaresborough,’
Prebendary of Knaresborough with Bickhill; Masham with Kirkby Malzeard and its
chapelries,!*? Prebendary of Masham.'°

(3) Middleham 4! was a royal peculiar, exempted from all metropolitan, archiepiscopal,
&c., jurisdiction in 1481.

The Yorkshire deaneries of the archdeaconry were three in number, viz. Boroughbridge,
Catterick, and Richmond. It also included a portion of Yorkshire in the deanery of Lonsdale.

(1) The deanery of Boroughbridge comprised the northern part of the wapentake of
Claro, and a portion of the wapentake of Hallikeld. The following churches, excluding
peculiars, are mentioned in Pope Nicholas’ Taxation ; Allerton Mauleverer, Copgrove,
Farnham, Goldsborough, Marton with Grafton, Great Ouseburn, Ripley, South Stainley,
Staveley, and Whixley, in Claro ; Cundall and Kirby-on-the-Moor, in Hallikeld Wapentake.
To these should be added Hunsingore and Nun Monkton’ in Claro,

(2) The deanery of Catterick included the wapentakes of Hang East and West, most of
the wapentake of Hallikeld, and portions of the wapentakes of Claro and Gilling East. The
following churches are mentioned in the Ecclesiastical Taxation: Aysgarth, Coverham,
Downholme, Fingall, Grinton,'8 Hauxwell, Middleham, Spennithorne, Thornton
Steward,* Wensley, East Witton, and West Witton, in Hang West; Bedale,’
Catterick,"° Kirkby Fleetham, Patrick Brompton,’ Scruton, Thornton Watlass, and Well,
in Hang East; and Burneston, Kirklington, Pickhill,“® Wath,“ and West Tanfield, in
Hallikeld.1”

(3) The deanery of Richmond included the greater part of the wapentakes of Gilling
East and Gilling West, with a small portion of the wapentake of Langbaurgh. The
following churches are mentioned in the Lcclesiastical Taxation: Barningham, Bowes,
Brignall, Easby, West Gilling, Kirkby Ravensworth, Marrick, Marske, Melsonby, Richmond,
Rokeby, Romaldkirk, Stanwick,!! Startforth, and Wycliffe, in Gilling West; Ainderby
Steeple, East Cowton, Croft, Danby Wiske, Kirby Wiske, Langton-on-Swale, Manfield,
Middleton Tyas, and Great Smeaton, in Gilling East. To these should be added Cleasby,
in Gilling East.1?

(4) The wapentake of Ewcross formed part of the deanery of Lonsdale. The following
churches are mentioned in the Ecclesiastical Taxation: Bentham and Sedbergh. To these
should be added Clapham and Thornton in Lonsdale.

These parishes formed part of the diocese of Ripon after 1836, but were not formed
into a separate deanery until 1848. The deanery of Clapham, then formed, remained in
the archdeaconry of Richmond until 1894, when it was united to the archdeaconry of

Craven.4
88 Locally in the deanery of Boroughbridge. 186 Locally in the deanery of Catterick.
*7 Locally in the deanery of Boroughbridge. 1% Thid. 8 Locally in the deanery of Catterick.

“° The peculiar court of Masham continued to exist after the dissolution of the prebend. | Middlesmoor
and Hartwith-with-Winsley were chapels of Kirkby Malzeard.

Locally in the deanery of Catterick.

“7 Both mentioned in Vabr Ecc/. (Rec. Com. v,255, 256). Pope Nich. Tax. also mentions Hampsthwaite
in this deanery (Rec. Com. 307): see note 46 above.

“3 Nelbecks, formerly in this parish, is in Gilling West Wapentake.

“ Appropriated to the Archdeacon of Richmond, and afterwards to the Bishop of Chester.

“5 Langthorne, part of Bedale, is in Hallikeld Wapentake.

“8 Of the chapels of Catterick, Hipswell is in Hang East Wapentake, Hudswell is in Hang West, and
Bolton-upon-Swale is in Gilling East.

“7 Part of Patrick Brompton is in Hang West.

M8 See note 104. 9 Toid.

” The following old chapelries may be noted: Askrigg, Hardrow, Hawes, Lunds, and Stallingbusk
(Aysgarth), Muker (Grinton), Hunton (Patrick Brompton), Bolton and Redmire (Wensley), Leeming
(Burneston).

41 Prebendal church of Ripon.

%? The church was consecrated in 1329, as a chapel to Stanwick.

‘8 Clapham was appropriated to the Archdeacon of Richmond, and afterwards to the Bishop of Chester.
Old chapelries are Ingleton, Chapel-le-Dale (Bentham), Dent, Garsdale, and Howgill (Sedbergh), Burton in
Lonsdale (Thornton).

** The deanery ccntains four old parishes, and nine new parishes.

THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES
OF YORKSHIRE

INTRODUCTION

The county of York was remarkable for the number and importance of
its religious foundations. Of the Benedictine Order there were only four
houses for men, but of these St. Mary’ s, York, Selby and Whitby, were all of
the first rank, and Monk Bretton is interesting as having been originally a
Cluniac house. Of the ten Benedictine nunneries none were of importance.
The striking feature of Yorkshire religious life, however, was the pre-
dominance of the Cistercian Order ; Byland, Fountains, Jervaulx, Kirkstall,
Meaux, Rievaulx, Roche and Sawley, forming a group of Cistercian
monasteries that cannot be paralleled elsewhere in England, and there were
twelve houses for women of the same order, though most of these were quite
small. It is noteworthy that in the case of the nunneries of Swine and
Wykeham the early records speak of certain canons being attached to the
convents. The Cluniac Order, after the secession of Monk Bretton in 1279,
was represented by the monastery of St. John’s, Pontefract, and the nunnery
of Arthington. The two Carthusian houses of Hull and Mount Grace were
comparatively late foundations, and there was at Grosmont a small priory of
the Grandimontine Order.

Ten houses of Austin Canons were founded before the middle of the
12th century, and of these Bolton, Bridlington, Guisborough, Newburgh and
Nostell, were of considerable importance. Another house of this order, that
of Haltemprice, was founded as late as 1320. The only convent of Austin
Nuns, that established at Moxby about 1165, originally formed part of the
priory of Marton, founded about 1135, as a double house for nuns and canons.
The Gilbertine Order, in which the double community was the rule, had
three houses in the county, and the Premonstratensian Canons also had three
abbeys. But the most remarkable house of Canons Regular was the priory of
North Ferriby of Austin Canons of the Order of the Temple ; they are some-
times erroneously said to have been affiliated to the Knights Templars, but
were in reality a cell of the abbey of the Temple of the Lord at Jerusalem
and in no way connected with the Knights of the Temple of Solomon ; at a
later date these canons seem to have been considered as ordinary Austin
Canons.

Both military orders, of the Temple and of the Hospital, had extensive
possessions in Yorkshire and each appointed a chief preceptor or master for

1Cf. Godstow, V.C.H. Oxon, ii, 73 ; and Nuneaton, V.C.H. Warw. ii, 66.
3 w 89 12

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the county. The Knights Templars had eight preceptories, but after the
dissolution of the order in 1310, although most of these estates passed to the
Hospitallers, Ribston was the only house which maintained a separate exis-
tence as a commandery.

The different orders of friars were well represented in the county. In
York itself there were houses of Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Austins,
and of the short-lived Order of the Sack. In 1257 Walter de Kirkham, Bishop
of Durham, granted 4 acres of land at Osmotherley for the establishment of
a priory of Crutched Friars,’ and in 1347 Thomas Lord Wake of Liddell
had royal licence to grant a toft and 10 acres in Blakehowe Moor in
Farndale for the foundation of a house of the same order,® but in neither case
does the design seem to have been carried out. In the same way Master
William de Alverton’s proposed foundation of Austin Friars at Northallerton
in 1340,* and the house of Minoresses which Sir William de la Pole began to
found at Hull in 1365,° came to nothing. At Knaresborough there was an
important establishment of Trinitarian Friars.

The list of hospitals which follows is lengthy, but it is probably not
complete ; so many small hospitals are known to us only from single refer-
ences that it is almost certain that others must have escaped notice altogether.
At the head of the list is St. Peter’s, or St. Leonard’s, of York, the largest and
wealthiest of all the early English hospitals. The identification of the
smaller, and for the most part unendowed, hospitals in the city is no simple
matter, many of them being known by more than one name.

Of collegiate churches the most important were the Minster at York
(associated with which were the Bedern, St. Mary and the Holy Angels and
St. William’s College), Ripon and Beverley, all three being of pre-Conquest
origin. Sir Richard le Scrope in 1393 had licence to found a chantry of six
chaplains, one of whom was to be warden, in his castle of Bolton, and at the
same time to give to the abbey of Easby lands for the support of six canons
and twenty-two poor men. In 1399 he obtained a fresh licence to transfer
the proposed endowment from Easby to the church of Holy Trinity, Wensley,
making this church collegiate and attaching a hospital to it,’ but although
this licence was confirmed by Henry IV ® it does not appear that either of the
proposed colleges at Bolton or Wensley was actually constituted. Another
abortive college was begun by Richard III, who proposed to found a college
of a hundred priests in connexion with York Minster.* Several altars were
actually erected ° andthe collegiate house begun, if not completed,” before
Richard’s defeat and death put an end to the scheme. A quasi-collegiate
chantry of twelve priests was established in Kirkleatham church in 1353,”
but was dissolved when the rectory was appropriated to the college of Staindrop
(county Durham) in 1408." A similar chantry of six priests was formed at
Harewood in 1353,'* and a semi-collegiate chapel was founded at Wilton-in-
Cleveland by Sir William Bulmer in 1528," but neither these nor Osmotherley,

* Pat. 41 Hen. III, no. 1. > Pat. 21 Edw. III » pt. ii,no. 6 ; Dugdale, Baronage, i, 541.
‘Pat. 14 Edw. III, pt. ii, no. 5. * Cal. Papal Laer: i iv, OI.
° Cai. Pet. 1391-6, p. 224. "Ibid. 1396-9, p. 489.
STbid. 1399-1401, p. 344. *York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, pt. i, fol. 100.
© Fsbric R. (Surt. Soc.), 87. " Test, Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), iv, 79.
2 Torre’s MS. fol. 59. 3 Mon. Angi. vi, 1401.
"Cal Clse, 1349-54, Pp. 520-2. © Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), v, 319.
49-545 PP 7 319

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

which church was held by three portionaries, sometimes called canons or
prebendaries, were true colleges. The alien priories were few and, with
the exception of Holy Trinity, York, unimportant.

Selby Abbey is said to have owed its existence to the settlement of a
hermit at that place, and instances of hermits occur in Yorkshire records with
some frequency. In 1315 King Edward II sent Lambert le Flemyng of
Ypres with four other hermits to reside at Knaresborough,” and three years
later he gave 76s. 6d. to the six hermits of ‘ Haywra’ in Knaresborough Forest,
of whom Brother Lambert was the proctor.” This hermitage was probably
of early date, as in 1267 John Floterdasse killed ‘a certain hermit dwelling
in le Wra.’** At Knaresborough also was the hermitage of St. Robert,
which continued to be occupied until at least the middle of the 14th cen-
tury.” Mention may also be made of Matthew Danthorpe, hermit, who
in 1399 tactfully built a chapel at Ravenspur to commemorate the landing
of Henry IV.” Instances of the more strictly secluded class of anchorites
are to be met with in the archiepiscopal registers and elsewhere.”

HOUSES OF BENEDICTINE MONKS

1. THE PRIORY OF MONK BRETTON = should attend the chapter, with the patron, for
the election.

The priory of Monk Bretton was founded These relations between Pontefract and Bret-
early in the reign of Henry II by Adam Fitz ton led to disputes and ill feeling, and Pope
Suain for monks of the Cluniac order! He gave Alexander IV* in 1255 issued a mandate
to God, St. Mary Magdalene of Lund, and directing the Dean and Archdeacon of Lincoln
Adam, at that time Prior of Bretton, and the to make inquiry and decide between the two
monks there, the whole of Bretton with some houses. The monks of Pontefract had, rightly
mills and other property.?_ From the mention or wrongly, regarded Monk Bretton as a cell
of an existing prior, this foundation charter must of their house, and the Prior of Pontefract had
be later in date than the letter which the claimed a right to the appointment of the Prior
Prior of La Charité-sur-Loire addressed to him of Monk Bretton, which Monk Bretton had
as his ‘dear and special friend and benefactor,’ refused. As a consequence the sub-prior of
and in which he granted leave for the founder to Monk Bretton reported in 1267 that this con-
choose a prior and other monks to form the vent had been without a prior for fifteen years,
convent from St. John’s Pontefract and other the monks claiming the free election of their
houses of the Cluniac order in England.? On prior, and the Prior of Pontefract claiming to
the strength apparently of this Pontefract claimed present to the post, and actually presenting
jurisdiction over Monk Bretton almost as if it Adam de Northampton, whom the daughter
were a cell only, and not merely, as seems to house refused to accept.6 An agreement was
have been contemplated, an independent daughter arrived at in 1269 as follows: Monk Bretton
house. was to pay 20s. ayear to Pontefract ad pitantiam,

In his letter to Adam Fitz Suain, the Prior and the monks of Bretton were to have the free
of La Charité, to whose house Pontefract was election of their prior and were to be free from all
affliated, had granted that the monks of Bretton kind of subjection or obedience to Pontefract.
should freely elect their prior, but the Prior of When, however, the monks of Bretton elected
Pontefract if requested by the convent of Bretton a prior they were to send for the Prior of

Pontefract to Pontefract, and not elsewhere, that

16 Exch, Acts. 376, no. 7. the elect might be installed by him. If the
Y Lib. R. Chan. 11 Edw. II, m. 13. prior was not at Pontefract, the Prior of Bretton

8 Assize R. 1051, m. II. was to be installed by the sub-prior, or third
See account of the Friary of Knaresborough Prior of Pontefract, but the Prior and convent
below. of Pontefract were to have no right of objecting
Gal Pat. 1505 140%, ‘p. 209. to the elected Prior of Bretton. The Prior and

1 e.g. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 108.
1 Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. v, 131.
? Ibid. 136, no. i. 3 Thid. no, il. ‘Ibid. 137, no. iii, *° Assize R. 1050, m. 13.

convent of Pontefract were to obtain a confir-

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

mation of this order by the Priors and convents
of Cluny and La Charité and the monks of
Bretton then at Cluny were to be set free and
return to Bretton.

Either the Prior and convent of Pontefract
failed to leave Bretton to itself, or the monks of
the latter house decided that their independence
could only be secured by a total and complete
severance of their house from the Cluniac order.
For at a visitation of the English Cluniac houses
made in 1279 ° by order of the Abbot of Cluny
the visitors reported as follows, regarding Monk
Bretton :—

On Monday preceding the feast of the Nativity of
the Blessed Virgin (8 September) we arrived at the
priory of Monk Bretton, accompanied by certain
officers of the sheriff . . .

Knocking at the outer gate, we demanded admit-
tance in the name of our Lord Abbot, on whose
service we had come to carry out the visitation of the
house. To this we received no answer. Again and
again the knocking was repeated, but to our continued
demand for admission the portal-gate remained per-
sistently closed. A certain person, however, whose
name was William de Riole, seemed to be acting for
the prior and sub-prior and the rest of the convent,
on this occasion, and upon him, in presence of all,
we proceeded to pass sentence of excommunication ;
which being done publicly and in writing, we took
our departure. The same day we immediately re-
ported the matter to the king, and to the sheriff, and
in due cour-e received the following commands and
instructions :—By the king we were ordered to take
into custody the above William de Riole; and the
sheriff directed us to force or make good our entrance
into the priory. As for myself, I quitted the spot,
but left the Prior of Montacute to await the necessary
warrants and summonses. On their arrival we returned
to Monk Bretton Priory, accompanied by the bailiff
and other sheriff’s officers. On entering the priory,
he at once proceeded to the church, and knocked at
the door of the chapter-house. Certain of the
inmates, habited in the dress of the order, were there;
some were sitting in the cloisters. The visiting
prior then entered the chapter-house, in order to
carry out the duties of his office, but not a single
monk appeared, and being asked the reason, the
fraternity affirmed, one and all, that they had no
intention of attending; their prior was away, and
they would not attend without him. Upon this
the Prior of Montacute, in presence of the entire
assemblage, proceded to pass sentence of excommuni-
cation upon the said William, the prior, the sub-prior
and the whole contumacious community, proclaiming
them so excommunicated on the part of the Abbot of
Cluny, and revoking at the same time the compact or
agreement which was in existence between the priories,
declaring it null and void. Upon this the Prior of
Pontefract withdrew at once, without either eating or
drinking or holding any further communication be-
tween them. It will be imperative to interfere very
seriously in this matter, and consider what measures
are to be adopted.

° Dorks. Arch. Fourn. xii, 398, quoting Duckett,
Fisit. of Engl. Clunize Houses.

This revolt was followed up at the beginning
of the following year by the subjection of the
monks as Benedictines to Archbishop Wickwane.
It has hitherto escaped attention that within
just a century after its foundation the priory of
Monk Bretton ceased to be a Cluniac house,
and remained Benedictine, pure and simple, tll
the Dissolution. Four months after the refusal
of the convent to respond to the demands of the
Prior of Montacute as Cluniac visitor, Archbishop
Wickwane visited the house, and on 4 January
1280-1,” was received by William de Richale,
the prior, and the ‘whole concourse’ of the
convent in the chapter-house, where the prior,
sub-prior, and all the monks, individually,
promised canonical obedience to the archbishop
and embodied their vows in a deed, signed and
sealed by the prior with his seal, the seal of the
convent being also appended unanimi conventis nostrt
assensu. The archbishop then proceeded with
his visitation, and those things which he found
worthy of correction he expounded ‘vive vocis
oraculo eisdem, medicinaliter corrigenda.’

From this time forward special emphasis seems
to be laid on the fact that Monk Bretton was a
Benedictine priory, both in the Papal Letters
and also in the Archiepiscopal Registers. An
attempt was, however, made to re-assert juris-
diction over the house for the Abbot of Cluny
in 1289-90, which Archbishop Romanus
strenuously contested, with the result that after-
wards no more seems to have been done in the
way of trying to force Monk Bretton to continue
its connexion with the order of Cluny. The
house continued, however, to pay £1 yearly to
the priory of Pontefract up to the time of the
dissolution of the latter.? Archbishop Romanus
wrote to Henry, Earl of Lincoln, that certain
persons of the Cluniac order were endeavouring
to hold wisitactonem absurdam in the monastery
of Monk Bretton which belonged to his juris-
diction, and in which he and his predecessors had
hitherto been in full and peaceable possession of
visiting and correcting.? The archbishop called
upon the earl not in any way to aid the
Cluniacs on this occasion. This letter to the
Earl of Lincoln was accompanied by another }!
to the Dean of Doncaster, and Mer. William
de Stokes, vicar of Felkirk, enjoining them to
repair to Monk Bretton, and the doors of the

"York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 1354.

® Ibid. Romanus, fol. 35.

* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com), v, 42, ‘de priore et
conventu de Monk Burton 1/.’

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 35. ‘ Nos
et predecessores nostri.’ This a distinct over-state-
ment of the case, as it was his immediate predecessor,
Wickwane who, as already recorded, was first re-
ceived by the prior and monks only nine years before,
and then in the face of the opposition of the repre-
sentatives of the Abbot of Cluny.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 35.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

monastery being closed against such presumers,
they were to warn them when they arrived to
retract their error and withdraw. Otherwise
' they were to denounce these disturbers solemnly
excommunicate.

What actually took place does not appear, but
on 10 May 1290” the archbishop gave Brother
William, Prior of the monastery of Monk Bret-
ton, ‘nobis et ecclesie nostre Ebor’ immediate
subjectum et ab obediencia ordinis Cluneacensis
exemptum,’ who for long time had gained praise
within and without the diocese for his religious
life and for a long period had borne rule in
the monastery, a general letter of commendation
to those whom he might visit. There is
another letter dated 29 May from the arch-
bishop to the king on behalf of the prior,
who is again said to be exempt from Cluniac
jurisdiction and directly subject to the arch-
bishop. The archbishop informed the king that
William de Richale ‘non est fugitivus aut vaga-
bundus,’ and he prayed the king to revoke a
letter sent to the Sheriff of York, on behalf of
the Cluniac order, so that neither the monastery
nor the archbishop’s jurisdiction over it should be
weakened. “The next information is the resig-
nation of Prior Richale on 21 September 1291,14
and the confirmation in the chapter-house of
Monk Bretton of William de Eboraco, one of
the monks, elected in his stead.

In 12937° the archbishop held a visitation of
the house and sent on 6 September his decretum
thereon. ‘The prior was not to be an acceptor
of persons, and was to remember that the goods
of the house were common property. The
brethren were to be punished for their faults, but
not in the presence of laymen. ‘The cellarer,
when not occupied with business inside or
outside the house, was to sleep in the dormitory,
and be present at matins and say mass. Brother
William de Waddeworth, whose fault is not
stated, was to be sent to Whitby,’® to undergo a
penance there. The sub-cellarer was to abstain
from upbraiding the brethren, and to behave
more respectfully (Aonestius) than he was wont to
do to the archbishop. If any monks were in-
corrigible, the prior was to inform the archbishop.
Brothers Roger de Kelsey, Walter de Holgate,
and Nicholas de Pontefracto, were to undergo
their penances devoutly. It is not said what
faults they had been guilty of, but Roger de
Kelsey was not to go out of the cloister for a
year, and was to take the last place in the
convent. Walter de Holgate was not to go out
for half a year, and was to be the third last
{tercius ultimus) in the convent, during that time.

™ York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 35.

33 Ibid. fol. 36. 4 Thid. fol. 40.

® Ibid. fol. 44.

16 Whitby Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 626. Monk
Bretton was to pay 50s. yearly for his maintenance at
Whitby.

Nicholas de Pontefracto was to keep his place in
the convent, but was not to go out for a
quarter of a year; and on Wednesdays and
Fridays all three were to fast on bread, ale and
vegetables.

Richard de Halghton succeeded William de
Eboraco as prior in November 1304.” His
rule, though a long one, did not end happily.
On 2 July 132378 Archbishop Melton wrote
to John de Collyngham, sub-prior, and John
Boyle, precentor of the monastery, as to
the wasteful expenditure of their house, and
directed them to demand, in his name, from
their prior, the keys of the treasury and of other
buildings, to lock up all the property belonging
to the house, in the sight of three or four of the
older and wiser of their brethren. He further
enjoined that all the money for their wool or
any other money coming to them was to be
safely kept in the manner above noted, so that
the prior meantime could not lay hands upon it.
Boyle appears to have been also one of the
bursars, and on 16 July the archbishop wrote
that it was reported that brother John Boyle
was not of sufficient industry to hold the office
of bursar, and if this were so, they were to
remove him, and choose another better fitted for
the office. The archbishop also intimated his
intention of visiting the monastery, when other
matters would be corrected. There isno record
of the proceedings at such a visitation, but on
22 August ® the archbishop deposed the prior,
charging him with wasting the goods of the
monastery and perjury committed in the chancery
court of the king, by pledging the priory in
£1,000 to Godfrey de Staynton and William
Scot, and other misdeeds. Richard de Halgh-
ton’s deposition was followed by the election of
his successor,”! at which twelve monks recorded
their votes, the late prior not being one of them.

William de Went received five votes, and
William de Staynton three. The archbishop
quashed the double election of William de Went
and William de Staynton, made in discordia.
As, however, most voted for William de Went,
the archbishop on 26 September appointed him
to the office.”

Richard de Halghton after his deposition left
the house for a time, which accounts for his
vote not being recorded at the election. He
returned, however, shortly afterwards, absque
magno strepitu, as the archbishop described it
in a letter to the prior and convent dated
20 November 1323.% He was to have his |
former order as a monk, and if he conducted ~
himself well and served God laudably, the
archbishop intended, at the instance of the

York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 445 (1304,
not 1305 as Mon. Angi. v, 135).

8 Ibid. Melton, fol. 1584.

® Jbid. fol. 159.

"| Ibid, ” Thid.

2 Thid. fol. 160.
3 Thid. fol. 160d.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

queen and others, to provide more generously
for him. On 3 January following ** the arch-
bishop directed that Richard de Halghton was
to have a separate chamber within the monastery
and one of the monks as his chaplain, according
to the ordinance of the prior, as well as a double
portion of allowance of the food of a monk,
20s. a year pro speciebus and clothes from the
convent, as well as a portion for a servant.

The troubles of the house did not, however,
cease, although unfortunately little more than
hints are given as to what was going on. Pope
John XXII issued a mandate, dated in November
1326,” to the Prior of Thornholme to go to the
Benedictine monastery of Bretton and inquire as
to a charge by Henry de Sandal, one of the
monks, against William de Went the prior, of
dilapidation and other crimes. The prior was
charged with having made William Bassett, an
apostate Friar Preacher, sub-prior, against the will
and protest of the monks. Robert de Langestoft,
who was excommunicate and a forger of papal
letters, had been made cellarer, and the monks
who would give evidence on these points had
been shut up, and in the archbishop’s absence
the prior had obtained favour by gitts to nobles
and powerful men of the city and diocese. A
report was to be sent to the pope and the prior
cited before him. What report was sent is not
known, but William Bassett, the apostate Friar
Preacher, was no credit to Monk Bretton and
caused a great deal of trouble. On 20 August
1331 Archbishop Melton sent him to Whitby
for punishment as a sower of discord in the
convent, and as having admitted the sin of
incontinence. In his letter to Whitby the arch-
bishop said that Bassett had been found guilty
de excessibus enormibus. He returned after a while
to Monk Bretton, and in 1340 made complaint
of the excessive correction from which he had
suffered in the monastery of Monk Bretton.”
The complaint against William de Went cannot
have been substantiated, for he retained office
for the next seven years and resigned in July
1338.78

In 1380-1 the prior was taxed at 275. old.,
and there were ten other monks each taxed at
35. 4a.°

In 1404 another complaint reached Rome
from the convent itself against its prior, and on

™ York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 1604.
* Cal. of Papal Letzers, ii, 254. The deliberate
description of Monk Bretton as Benedictine should

be noted. Other similar allusions occur in Cal, of

Papal Letters, ii, 254; iv, 3033 V, 117, 200, 604, and
are almost universal in the Archiepiscopal Register
when Monk Bretton is mentioned.

*» York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 187. Monk
Bretton was to pay 5 marks a year to Whitby for his
keep.

* Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 493.

* Subs. R. bdle. 63, no. 12.

19 April 140450 Boniface IX issued a mandate
to the Archbishop of York to summon William,
Benedictine Prior of Monk Bretton, and if he
found, as the recent petition of the convent con-
tained, that he had dilapidated and alienated its
goods and continued to do so, to deprive him,
license the convent to elect another prior, and
confirm the election. Apparently the com-
plaint of the convent was substantiated, for on
20 December 1404! Archbishop Scrope con-
firmed the election of John de Crofton as prior,
vice William de Ardesley resigned.

Monk Bretton was one of the greater houses,
which escaped dissolution under the earlier Act.
Its temporalities were derived from property,
mostly in its immediate neighbourhood, but
including a few small possessions in Derbyshire,
Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Lancashire.
The spiritualities were the two consolidated
moieties of the church of Bolton-on-Dearne,
the churches of Monk Bretton a/as Lund, Dar-
ton, Royston, and Hickleton. The gross annual
revenue was {£323 8s. 2d., and the clear value
£239 35. 6d.

‘The house was surrendered on 21 November
1539 * by the prior and thirteen monks. Their
goods and cattle were sold for £347 35. 8d., the
lead of the church amounted to 39 fodders and
there were seven bells.

The plate * belonging to Monk Bretton at
the time of the Dissolution was as follows : ‘Item.
j crosse of wodd plated w' silver. Item. an
oder wodd crosse having the iiij evangelistes
enameled. Item. fyve chalices. Item. j little
pixe gylt. Item. ij crewetes. It. j gret
squair salt w' cou’ parcell gilt. It. j oder
squair salt wtout cou’ parcel gilt. Item. xij
spoones. It, j standing piece w' cou’ gylt. It. j
pounced piece. It. ij little pieces. It. iij masors.
It. j goblet w* cover parcell gilt.’

There were fourteen monks pensioned at the
Dissolution.** William Browne the _ prior
received {£40 a year ; Thomas Normanton, sub-
prior, and William Roieston, cellarer, each £7 ;
three others £6 each, seven £5 6s. 8d., and one
(John Pontefract) £6 135. 4d.

Priors or Monk Brerron

(Cruntac]

Adam (the first prior) *
Roger, early 13th century *
Adam II, occurs 1227 *8

* Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 604.

*! York Archiepis. Reg. Scrope, fol. 43.
* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 42.

*® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 135.

* LT. ana P. Hen. VIII, xiii (2), 1172.
* Ibid. xiv (1), p. 67.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 136, no. i.
7 Harl. Chart. 83, C. 36.

* Baildon, Men. Neves, i, 140.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Adam de Norhampton,
1259 and 1266”

R— 12674

William de Richale, occurs 1279 #

intruded, occurs

[BENEDICTINE]

William de Richale, occurs 1280,** resigned
1291 *#

William de Eboraco, confirmed 1291,‘*
occurs 1297 *°
Richard de Halghton, confirmed 1304,"

deprived 1323 *
William de Went, 1323,” resigned 1338 *
William de Appleby, confirmed 1338 *
William de Staynton, occurs 1347,°° died
1349"
Hugh Brerley, confirmed 1349 ™
John de Birthwaite, 1363," occurs 1370 *4
William de Ardesley, 1387, resigned 1404
John de Crofton, 1404,” resigned 1407 ®
Thomas Dolldale or Dowdale, confirmed
1407,°° died 1425 ©
John de Crofton (second time), elected 1425 ©
Richard de Ledes, occurs 1435,° 1442,
1452," 1484 °
William Batley, elected 1486,% died 1494
Robert Drax, confirmed 1494 ®
Roger ©
Thomas Tickhill, confirmed 1504 7

William Browne, confirmed 15237

89 Harl. Chart. 112, F. 28.

*° Assize R. 1050, m. 13.

"| Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. 155.

# As William de ‘Riole,’ Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xii,

8.
9% York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 354.

“4 Ibid. Romanus, fol. 21. 44a Thid.

“> Lansd. MS. 405 (Cartul. of Monk Bretton),
fol. 14d.

“6 York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 44d.

6 Ibid. Melton, fol. 1604.

‘’Tbid. ; Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 140, gives ‘ Went-
brig’ as an alternative form of his name, but it is
always ‘Went’ only in the Registers, where it fre-
quently occurs.

*8 York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 2154.

* Tbid.

50 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 140.

51 York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 39.

* Tbid.

53 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 135.

5 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 140.

55 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 135.

58 York Archiepis. Reg. Scrope, fol. 43.

57 Thid. 58 Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 290.
59 Tbid. Ibid. fol. 4084. 8! Tbid.
® Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 140. % Tbid.

* Cott. Chart. xxvill, 88.

® Burton, Mon. Edor. 99.

§ Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 135.

§’ York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 83.
88 Ibid. ® Burton, Mon. Ebor. 99.

7 York Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 37.

1 Ibid. Wolsey, fol. 714.

A seal, apparently of the 12th century, is a
vesica, 24 in. by 2in.; showing a full-length
figure of St. Mary Magdalene, the patron saint.
Of the legend only the word MARIE remains.”

2. THE ABBEY OF SELBY

The abbey of St. Mary and St. German of
Selby claimed the Conqueror for its founder, but
its origin was due to Benedict, a monk at
Auxerre. The legend? is that Benedict, when
a monk at Auxerre, was warned in a dream by
St. German to go to England, whither he came,
bringing with him as a relic a finger of the saint.
Somehow he got to Salisbury, where a person
named Edward gave him a beautiful wrought
golden shrine to hold the relic, which was after-
wards exhibited at Selby. He left for the place
in Yorkshire indicated to him in the vision, and
established himself asa hermit about the year
1068, at the place which afterwards became
known as Selby. Here he was found by Hugh,
the Sheriff of Yorkshire, by whom he was brought
into contact with William the Conqueror, then
possibly at York. The Conqueror granted a
small piece of land on which to build the monas-
tery, and this grant he largely increased by a
subsequent charter a year or two afterwards.

Why William the Conqueror should have
chosen Selby for founding the monastery has
always been unexplained. Probably Canon
Fowler’s suggestion is the true explanation of
the matter, viz., ‘that Hugh the sheriff was so
impressed by the holiness and reputation of
Benedict and his wonder-working relic that he
induced the king to provide that in place of an
anchor-hold, there should spring up an abbey, of
which the anchorite should be the first abbot.’?

The date of the foundation charter seems to
be fixed at about 1070. Symeon of Durham
says that Selby Abbey sumpsit exordium in 1069,
and as Bishop Remigius, one of the witnesses,
was consecrated in 1070, the latter seems to be
the probable date of the charter. In the founda-
tion charter * the king granted to Abbot Benedict
leave to found an abbey in ‘Salebya,’ in honour
of Our Lord Jesus Christ, His blessed Mother
the Virgin Mary, and St. German, Bishop of
Auxerre, and gave the abbey its own court, with
sac and soc, and to/ and theam, and infangenthef,
and all the better customs as the church of

St. Peter of York.

™ Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3657 ; Harl. Chart. 84, B. 28.

! The ‘ Historia Selebiensis Monasterii,’ written in
1184, which contains the legend as to Benedict, is
printed in the Coucher BR. of Selby, i, p. [1]-p. [54].

® Coucher BR. of Selby (ed. J. 'T. Fowler), i, p. vil.

3 Ibid. 12 n.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. ili, 499, no. 1; Coucher Bk.

of Selby, i, 11.
95

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

More than eighty charters, confirmations, and
other royal deeds in favour of Selby Abbey are
recorded in the Coucher Book,’ and the grants
of land and other property from different donors
were enormous. ‘They are epitomized by Bur-
ton alphabetically according to the places them-
selves, on sixteen folio pages of his work.®

A dispute as to the extent of the province of
Canterbury arose in 1067, when Remigius
moved his see from Dorchester in Oxfordshire to
Lincoln. The Archbishops of York had always
claimed that Lindsey belonged to their diocese
and province, and eventually William Rufus
settled the matter by giving Lindsey to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Selby Abbey and
the priory of St. Oswald at Gloucester to the
Archbishop of York. His charter states? that
he had given to Archbishop Thomas and his
successors the abbey of St. German ‘sicut
archiepiscopus Cantuariensis habet episcopatum
Rofensem.’ It seems that Gundulf recognized
the archbishop as patron of the see of Rochester,
so that what the king gave was probably the
patronage of Selby. ‘The archbishop apparently
regranted their privileges to the monks not long
after, and they afterwards elected their abbots by
licence from the crown.8

On 1 April 1233 Archbishop Gray held a
visitation of the abbey of Selby,® and the injunc-
tions he gave on that occasion are among the
earliest examples extant of anything of the kind.
First, he enjoined the abbot to apply the highest
care as to the observance of the discipline of the
order and rule. He was to arrange the business
of the house, according to the rule of the blessed
Benedict, with the advice of four of the more
skilful of the house, chosen by himself and the
convent, With their advice he was to appoint two
cellarers, one within the house, and the other
for external affairs. The abbot, by the advice
of his four associate monks, was to appoint two
bursars who were to receive all the money coming
to the monastery, which was to be expended for
the common utility of the house, according to
the decision of the abbot and other officers.

The refectory, kitchen, infirmary, and camera
were to be competently provided for, lest by
defect of necessaries the servants of God should
murmur, or should procure things less honest
outside. Diligent and fit officials were to be
appointed to every ofice. The proper number
of monks was to be made up. The archbishop

5 Fowler, Ceucher Bk. of Selby, i, 11-102, where
they are printed in extenso.

§ Burton, Aon, Edcr. 388-404.

” Coucher Bk. of Selby, i, p. ix, n., where it is re-
printed in full from Fasti Edcr. i, 151 n.

® Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. ii, 485. Numerous records
of the issue of a congé déiire are extant on the Patent
Rolls.

9 Archap, Gray's Reg. (Sart. Soc.), Add. 327.

1 What that number wis does not appear.

ordered that his seriptum was to be recited three
times in the current year by the abbot in the
presence of the convent, at appropriate terms,
lest aught be neglected through forgetfulness.
He reserved, however, to himself power to
interpret, relax, or correct, or do anything else,
which might seem to him to be good for the
utility of the monastery.

On 31 May 1256" Pope Alexander IV
granted a faculty to the Abbot of Selby to use
the ring, mitre, pastoral staff, tunic, dalmatic,
gloves and sandals, and to bless altar-cloths and
other church ornaments, and to give the first
tonsure. This faculty appears to have fallen
into disuse not long after it was granted, for on
11 April 1308 Archbishop Greenfield sent a
formal letter to the abbot and convent, saying that
he had inspected the Apostolic Letters, and, with
consent of the dean and chapter, he granted that
the abbot might use the foresaid insignia,!
which per aliqua tempora the abbot of the monas-
tery had omitted to use.

When Archbishop Giffard visited the mon-
astery and its dependent cell of Snaith, by
commission, in 1275%* several of the monks
were charged with loose living, including the
abbot, and many of the complaints referred
to misconduct with married women. The
abbot at that time was Thomas de Whalley,
who had previously held the abbacy and been
deprived. Things did not mend, and on
8 January 1279-80" Archbishop Wickwane
made a visitation of the abbey in person, when it
was found that the abbot did not observe the
tule, did not sing mass (missam non cantat), did
not preach or teach, and seldom attended chapter,
he did not correct as he was bound to do, rarely
took his meals in the refectory, never slept in the
dormitory, rarely entered the quire, rarely heard
matins out of bed, did not visit the sick, publicly
ate flesh meat before laymen in his manors and
elsewhere outside the precincts of his monastery,
and even in the monastery on Wednesdays
indiscriminately, was haughty and malicious
(injuriosus) towards his brethren, quarrelsome, and
a disturber in the convent, despised and neglected

" Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 331.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 705. In
the Monasticon (iil, 485) and elsewhere this grant is
wrongly ascribed to Pope Alexander II in 1076.
Pope Alexander II died 21 April 1073, three years
before the supposed grant, which was really made by
Alexander IV, nearly 200 years later.

® Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 325.

“He had been abbot 1254-66, when he was
deprived. In 1270, on the death of Abbot David,
he was again elected, but the archbishop quashed the
election on account of defects of procedure ; he how-
ever appointed Thomas de Whalley to the abbacy, and
notified the king of the appointment on 4 July 1270
(Giffard’s Reg. 217-20).

* York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 105.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

altogether the statutes of the archbishops, and, in
short, was negligent and ill-disposed in all that
pertained to divine affairs and regular discipline,
and was altogether incorrigible. More than this,
he had alienated, without consent of his convent,
lands, manors, tithes, corrodies, &c. The lands
were specified, including the manor of Chellow
near Bradford, and that of Stainton in Craven.

He had given three estates, which are specified,
to his brother John, who in 1275 had been
charged with immorality. He had given a pen-
sion of 4 marks to his nephew Thomas. The
tithes of Driffield, and the money he had
received from alienations he had made, he had
spent as he liked. Owing to his neglect he had
lost the rent and tithe of various places, which
are named, In the liberty of Snaith he had
handed over the manors to be kept by his
relatives, garcionibus et rybaldis, and when he
received anything from them for corn and other
things sold, he spent it as he liked, without ren-
dering an account. He appointed obedienti-
aries according to his will, who were favourable
to him, and from whom he got money and other
goods of the house. He cut down and sold
groves, and spent the money as he liked.
Worse still was proved against him. He was
found guilty of incontinence with the lady of
Whenby (domina de Queneby) and with a girl,
Bodeman, living at the monastery gate, who, as
reported, had borne him offspring. He was
perjured, too, for he swore before his last installa-
tion that he would restore the charters of Stal-
lingborough as soon as he was installed, and
hitherto had not done so. He was excommuni-
cate, both because he had not paid the pope’s
tithe and had turned to other uses the tithes of
the chapel of Wheatley assigned for alms, as also
for despising the statutes of Archbishop Gray,
and because he had laid violent hands on Brother
Robert de Eboraco to the effusion of blood, and
also on William de Stormeworthe, dragging him
from the quire. He had also laid hands on
Thomas de Snayth, clerk, drawing blood from
him, whom he had appointed to recover certain
tithes at Snaith. He was further charged with
incantation and sorcery, in procuring Elyas
Fauvelle to seek for the body of his brother, who
had been drowned in the River Ouse, and on
this he spent a large sum of money. Thus for
these reasons he was excommunicate, but had
taken part in divine affairs in spite of it. This
string of misdeeds of all sorts having been proved
against the unworthy abbot, the archbishop
pronounced formal sentence of deposition, and
transferred the deposed abbot to the monastery
of Durham, there to undergo a penance ap-
pointed for the good of his soul. On Tuesday
before the feast of the Epiphany Thomas de
Whalley formally confessed himself to have been
duly amoved by the archbishop, and submitted
himself to the sentence passed upon him,

3 o7

In 1306'® Archbishop Greenfield held a
visitation of Selby, when it was again apparent
that matters were seriously amiss. One of the
monks, Henry de Belton, for his enormities was
handed over to the Abbot of St. Mary’s, York, to
be sent to their far-off cell of Rumburgh, in
Suffolk, at an annual charge of 4 marks, to be
paid by Selby ; but from a subsequent letter of
the archbishop it would seem that he was being
detained at St. Mary’s, and the archbishop then
directed the abbot to dispatch him, with a safe
convoy, to St. Bees. Another monk, Thomas
de Wilmerley, was sent at the same time and
at the same costs to Whitby ; both had prescribed
penances appointed them, and the archbishop
further commissioned his official to inquire into
the miserable condition of another monk, Thomas
de Eyton.”

On 20 March 1315 * the dean and chapter, sede
vacante, wrote to the Abbot and convent of Whitby
in regard to Robert de Brune, a monk of Selby,
whom the archbishop had transferred there to
undergo a penance. The Abbot and convent
of Whitby had reported well concerning him,
and for the future he was to hold among them
locum suo statu competentem, and on Wednesday
to have the same food as the rest, but on Fridays
he was to have only bread, ale, vegetables and
one kind of fish, until his case should merit
further favourable consideration.

Ong April 1322" Abbot John de Wystow II
sent to Archbishop Melton a full account of the
status of the monastery on the feast of St. Stephen,
1320, when his predecessor Simon de Scarborough
died. The monastery was still in debt to the
amount of £551 8s., and was then burdened by
pensions and fees amounting to £44 16s. 84d.
yearly, also fifteen corrodies of food and drink
to fifteen persons daily during their lives, of
whom eight were receiving daily food for them-
selves and their servants (garcionibus) and seven
food for themselves only, eleven of them also
receiving clothes (robas) yearly. Besides this,
the grain of the monastery was deficient. The
revenues and rents, which the abbot’s predecessor
and the cellarer of the house were accustomed
to receive in different places, had, at the time of
his decease, depreciated by more than 100 marks.
a year.

Archbishop Melton held a visitation of Selby
on 10 July 1324,7? when he found the house
heavily in debt and burdened by pensions.

York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 59.

” On 26 Nov. Archbishop Greenfield addressed
a letter to the presidents of the Benedictine chapters
to recall Thomas de Shyrburn, monk of Selby, who
two years previously had left his monastery without
leave and was wandering about the country; York
Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 59.

® York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol.

gid.
® Ibid. Melton, fol. 153.

® Tbid. fol. 164.
13

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The abbot and all the officials were exhorted
to use moderation. The infirmary, it was
stated, was built in an improper and base position,
so that the sick brethren were in danger from the
stench and infected atmosphere; if that was so,
then, as soon as the means of the house permitted,
another infirmary was to be built.

Markets and sales in the cemetery of the
church were inhibited, and linen cloths were not
to be bleached there by women.

All the monks were to be uniform as to habit
according to the old fashion, and neither to
introduce any novelties, nor to sell their habits,
but they were to receive necessary habits from
one of the vestiarit, and the old ones were to
be given to poor persons asking for them.

On 27 December 1335 *! Archbishop Melton
reported to the abbot and convent, that at his
recent visitation of their monastery he had
found six of their number gravely defamed of
crimes and excesses mentioned in the articles he
sent to them.

Adam dela Breuer was defamed super lapsu
carnis with Alice, daughter of Roger the Smith
of Selby, and of incontinence with her sister
also. He was commonly drunk, riotous and
a sower of discord among the brethren. He
gossiped carelessly and improperly with women
in the cloister, church, and elsewhere, and
particularly with the before-mentioned Alice and
her sister, to the scandal of the order. More-
over he abstracted different things belonging to
the monastery, having secret little places in his
clothes adapted for his thefts. He had abused
every one of the monks who had told the truth
at the visitation. He was wont to leave the
quire before the conclusion of divine service, not
having sought, or obtained, leave to do so. He
sent alms and other goods of the house to the
women with whom he had been often con-
victed.

Thomas de Hirst sent alms and gave other
aliments of goods of the house to Margaret the
maidservant of Felicia, and six other women
dwelling in the town of Selby. He behaved
lasciviously and dissolutely both in public and
occulte with women, by which means evil suspi-
cion had arisen within and without the monas-
tery. He also frequently furtively abstracted
different things belonging to the monastery.

John de Whitgift frequently gossiped with
Margaret Mortimer and other women in the
church and elsewhere, contrary to his profession
and the honesty of religion. In addition, he
sent alms and other goods of the house to a cer-
tain suspected woman.

Robert de Flexburgh was very spiteful and
malicious to his companions, calling them eaves-
droppers and liars. He had often been convicted
of incontinence with certain women of the

" York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 2064,

town, and he sent them alms and other goods of
the house. In spite of the inhibition of the sub-
prior and other members of the convent he had
not desisted from gossiping with suspected women,
publicly and occu/te.

Robert de Pontefracto sent presents and many
other goods belonging to the house to a certain
Maye de Pontefracto, owing to which the suspi-
cion of a carnal connexion between them had
arisen. Nicholas de Houghton was a sower of
discord among the brethren. He adhered too
much to, and gossiped with, a certain woman,
with whom he had been convicted and corrected
super lapsu carnis. The following penances were
to be imposed on these monks.

Adam de la Breuer for a whole year was to
bewail his sins imprisoned ina building safe and
remote from the concourse of men, and especially
from theaccess of women tohim. Each Wednes-
day and Friday he was to be taken to the chapter,
and from every one present he was, in a humble
manner, to receive a discipline, which done, he was
to return to his penance, and on those days was to
have bread, soup, and light ale, and on other
days the ordinary food as served to other monks,
delicacies being, however, excepted.

Brothers Thomas de Hirst, John de Whitgift,
Robert de Flexburgh, for the same period, were
not to go outside the cloister, or in any way to
talk with women, without the special licence
of the abbot or his vicegerent, and then openly
in the presence of two monks. On Wednesdays
and Fridays they were to have only bread, soup
and light ale, andin chapter to receive the
blows of discipline from all the convent.

Among general defects the archbishop found
that the roofs of the conventual church were
very defective and that the /atrina of the infir-
mary was so foul that the evil odour from it was
highly offensive to persons sitting in the cloister.

The year following” the archbishop issued
another set of injunctions, many of them being
the common form of decreta following a visita-
tion. He found the monastery heavily in debt,
and pensions, &c. were not to be granted, except
with consent of the convent, and special licence
of the archbishop. The bursars, cooks, and
other officers were torender yearly accounts to
the abbot or his deputy, and certain of the more
discreet members of the convent. Women were
not to bleach clothes in the churchyard. No
monk was to accept money for his garments,
and the sick were to be properly attended to.

This appears to be the last recorded visitation
of Selby in the Registers, but in a volume in the
Record Office entitled ‘ Registrum de Tempore
Galfridi de Gaddesby,” Abbatis de Seleby,’ there

” Tbid. Melton, fol. 209d.
™ Geoffrey de Gaddesby was abbot 1342-64.

The volume is sometimes wrongly alluded to as a
‘Selby Chartulary.’

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

is a list of questions to be put at a visitation of
Selby in 1343." These questions are too long
to be quoted in full, but they are very important
in showing that besides the personal inquiries
into matters which might come under the visi-
tor’s notice on these occasions, a series of ques-
tions had to be formally replied to, very probably
in writing, The questions proposed to the
abbey of Selby on this occasion included
inquiries such as whether the abbot or prior
was circumspect in all matters, whether after
the notice of the visitation or the rumour that
it would be held became known the president
had in any way imposed silence asto any matters,
and whether the converst as well as the brethren
had beensummoned. ‘Then come questions as
to silence, correction of abuses, immorality,
&c. Two questions at the end are of interest :
one is whether all go to confession at least
once a month, and the other whether all re-
ceive the Sacrament on the first Sunday in the
month,

In 1380-1” the abbot was taxed at {9 125.13d.
and there were twenty-five monks, each taxed at
35. 4.8

In 1393” Pope Boniface 1X granteda relaxa-
tion of enjoined penance to penitents who
visited and gave alms for the conservation of the
chapel of the Holy Cross in the Benedictine
monastery of Selby.

The Abbots of Selby were from early times
summoned to Parliament. The privilege was
not always appreciated, and when Abbot
Geoffrey de Gaddesby was summoned to the
Parliament of 18 Edward I, he excused himself
personal attendance owing to his feebleness of
body and sent one of his monks, Walter de
Haldenby, with Thomas de Brayton, clerk, to
represent him.”

In the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 ° the total
value is set down at £719 2s. 63d. Among
the reprises the following alms are mentioned :—
6 quarters of fine grain at 5s. the quarter, and
3 oxen distributed in pieces to the poor, of the
foundation of William the Conqueror, 70s. in
all; money given to poor and indigent strangers
yearly 40s.; money annually given to poor
persons coming within the cloister of the monas-
tery on Maundy Thursday, of the foundation of
William the Conqueror, 40s.; also 50s. similarly
given yearly on the anniversary of Walter
‘Skirley,’ Bishop of Durham.

In the kitchener’s office an heifer or two swine
were given to the poor on the Monday before

4 «Selby Chartul.’ (P.R.O.), fol. 4.

>In 14 Hen. VIII the clear annual value of
Selby was reckoned at £606 12s. 64. (Subs. R. 64,
no. 300).

6 Subs. R. 63, no. 12.

” Cal. of Papal Letters, iv, 455.

38 ¢ Selby Chartul.’ fol. 6.

* Valor Eccl, (Rec. Com.), v, 12-14.

Lent and on Maunday Thursday a ‘ mase’™ of
herrings worth 6s.

The abbey was surrendered on 6 December
1539, and the surrender enrolled on 6 February
following. There were twenty-three monks
besides the abbot, Robert Selby a4as Roger (not
Rogers), including Robert Mydley the prior, and
James Laye, Prior of Snaith. Twenty-two
were priests and two were acolytes only. The
abbot received a pension of {100 a year, the
prior £8, the others £6 6s. 8¢., £6, or £5 each,
the two acolytes receiving only 53s. 4d. a year.

ApgBots OF SELBY 74

Benedict, 1069-97

Hugh de Lacy, 1097-1123
Herbert, 1123-7

Durand, 1127-37 ®

(A vacancy of two years)

Walter, 1139-43 *
Helias Paynel, 1143-53
German, 1153-60

Gilbert de Vere, 1160-84

(A vacancy 1184-9)

Roger de London, 1189-95

Richard I* (prior), 1195-1214

Alexander, 1214 34-21

Richard, 1221,°* resigned 1223 %%»

Richard (sub-prior of Selby), 1223 *

Hugh de Drayton, 1245, died 1254

Thomas de Whalley, 1254, deprived 1263

David de Cawod, 1263-9

Thomas de Whalley,® restored 1270, deprived
again 1280

%° According to Whitaker's Almanack (1908), 452,
herrings are still sold on the west coast of Scotland,
the Isle of Man, and Ireland by the ‘Maze,’ which
consists of five long hundreds of 123 each. Of
course, the older measure in Yorkshire may possibly
have been different in quantity.

3} This list is practically that in the Coucher BR.
of Selby, i, index, 402, checked by the Calendars of
Patent Rolls. A few additional particulars are given
as to some of the abbots.

°° Resigned under compulsion and became a Cluniac;
Coucher BR. of Selby, i [29].

* Formerly Prior of Pontefract (a Cluniac house);
ibid. [21].

Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iii, 495.

2 Rot. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com.), i, 125.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iii, 496. In 1221 the
abbot resigned on account of old age, and was suc-
ceeded by Richard, Prior of St. Ives, a cell of Ramsey.

$58 Thid.

%> He entered a stricter order in 1223 ; Cal Pat.
1216-25, p. 363.

Thid. 364. After him, and before Hugh, Burton
and others insert Alexander, but from Dugdale, Mon.
Angi. iii, 496, it appears he was prior, not abbot.

“In 1270 not 1269; Archbishop Giffard’s Reg.
(Surt. Soc.), 217.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

William de Aslakeby (prior), 1280, died 1293

John de Wrystow I (sub-prior), 1294, re-
signed 1300

William de Aslaghby (sacrist), 1300, died 1313

Simon de Scardeburg (prior), 1313, died 1321

John de Wystow II,*® 1322, died 1335

John de Heslyngton (a monk), 1335, died 1342

Geoffrey de Gaddesby, 1342, died 1368 *°

John de Shirburn, 1369, died 1408

William Pigot, 1408, died 1429 *°

John Cave, 1429, died 1436

John Ousthorp, 1436, died 1466 *#

John Sharrow, 1466,** died 1486

Lawrence Selby, 1487-1504

Robert Depyng (monk of Crowland),#
1504-18

Thomas Rawlinson, 1518-22

John Barwic, 1522-6

Robert Selby, 1526-40

The r1th-century seal‘ is a vesica, 23 in. by
21n., with a figure of St. German seated and
blessing and holding his crozier. The legend
is :—

SIGILLV SCI GERMANI SELBIENSIS ECLESIE

The counterseal is a Roman gem carved with
the head of the Emperor Honorius and the in-
scription DN HONORIVS AVG set in a vesica, 1} in.
by 1 in, having the lezend :—

rH} CAPVD NOSTRYM CRISTVS EST

Abbot Richard sealed, c. 1224, with a vesica,“
2% in. by 1Zin., showing St. German seated and
holding his crozierand delivering another crozier
to the abbot who kneels before him. The
legend is :—

KIA RICARD’ DEI GRA MINISTER HUM...
CL’E sCI GERMANI DE SELEBI

3. PRIORY OF SNAITH

The church of St. Lawrence, Snaith,! about
the beginning of the episcopate of Gerard,” the

88’ That he was different from the other abbot of
the same name is clear from allusions to him in the
Register of Geoffrey Gaddesby, e.g. Coucher Ba. ii,

72 Xe.

'® Cal, Close, 1364-8, p. 449.

Cal. Pat. 1422-9, p. 541.

“ Thid. 1461-7, p. 550; York Archiepis. Reg.
G. Nevill, fol. 13. He is also called ‘Westhorpe’ ;
Baildon, fon. Netes, i, 196.

“3 Cal. Pat. 1461-7, p. $34.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 435.

8 Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3981; Harl. Chart. 44 fol. 16.

“ Thid. 3984, lxxv, 10.

‘Lawton (Coll. Rerum Eccl.) erroneously gives
“St. Mary’ as the dedication (155), doubtless
following Bacon in Lider Rezis.

* Gerard’s episcopate was 1101-8.

Archbishop of York, was granted by him to the
Abbot and convent of Selby.? Afterwards Snaith
became a small Benedictine cell under the juris-
diction of Selby. ‘On 14 May 1310 the sen-
tence of William Greenfield, Archbishopof York,
was pronounced upon the appropriation of the
church of Snaith. . . tothe Abbot and convent
of Selby, and it shall be lawful for them at their
will and pleasure to place and remove two of their
monks in the church of Snaith, to be continually
resident; and by a secular priest (by them to be
substituted and displaced) to hear the confessions
of the parishioners, and to administer baptism to
children, and so perpetually to serve, without any
ordination of a vicar.’ ®

Before this ordination the church of Snaith
had been a source of considerable revenue to
Selby, being valued in 1292 at no less a yearly
sum than £153 6s. 8.8

A quarrel arose in 1393 between the abbot
and the Duke of Lancaster concerning the church
and manor of Snaith. It was attempted to
include them in the liberty of the duchy. But
the abbot maintained his privileges, and on
8 October 1393 issued a decree from the
chapter-house afhrming the rights of the abbey.’

Shortly after this, complaints were made be-
cause the abbot had not caused a vicarage to be
ordained, but had simply had a. stipendiary
chaplain. The whole matter concerning the
services and rights of Snaith, and the reciprocal
relations of the abbey and its cell, were then
settled by a decree, dated 14 March 1409, issued
by Richard Pittes, the archbishop’s chancellor.
The settlement affirmed the complete jurisdiction
of the abbey over the priory, Snaith being declared
to be ‘canonically united to the abbot and con-
vent,’” and the decree was confirmed by the Dean
and Chapter of York on 30 March 1409.

Although the cell of Snaith consisted only of
two monks, one of them was styled prior, and on
12 October 1535 an order was issued from the
manor court at Snaith ‘that the prior, sub-monk,
and all the priests of the church of Snaith, shall
not go forth from their own houses, or the house
in which they table together, after 8 o’clock after
noon in winter, and 10 o’clock after noon in
summer, on pain of forfeiting to our Lord the
King 6s. 8d. for each offence.’ ®

When Selby surrendered on 6 December
1539,” Snaith, the dependent cell, naturally went
with it, and in the list of abbey pensions occurs :

‘Jacobo
£605, od?

Laye nuper priori de Sneath

* Torre, Peculiars, 1381. * Burton, Mon. Ebor. 401.
* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 78.
* Lawton, Coll. Rerum Eccl. 155. ” Tbid.
° Torre, Peculiars, 1382.
* Priory and Peculiar of Snaith, 35, 36.
Lawton, Relig. Houses, 33.
™ Morrell, Hist. of Selby, 113.

100

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Sersy Aspey (11Tn Cenrury)

Secey Assey (countersea/)

(11TH Century)

St. Mary’s AgBey, York

(11th Century)

YorksuirE Monastic Seats— Pare

Simon pE Warwick,
Assor or Str. Mary’s York
(1258-1296)

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Sir William Babthorpe and his fellow-com-
Missioners on 23 May 1540 gave the valuation
of the ‘sell or parsonage of Snaythe,’ over and
above the stipends of two parish priests and one
chantry priest, as £12 2s. per annum.

Priors

John Selby, occurs 1439 ?
James Laye, occurs 1539, ‘last Prior’ ¥

4. THE ABBEY OF WHITBY

While the history of the monastery of Streones-
halch, so intimately associated with the Abbess
Hilda, forms an important chapter in the early
history of Christianity in the north of England,
that of the Benedictine house, which after a lapse
of two centuries was founded on its site, is devoid
of exceptional interest or importance.

The story of the re-founding of the monastery
by William de Percy is not very clear, for there
are extant three accounts, practically contem-
porary with one another, which differ as to many
of the facts related. These three accounts are :
one given in the ‘ Abbot’s Book’ of Whitby,
another by Symeon of Durham, and the third by
Stephen, the first Abbot of St. Mary’s, York.
The latter differs greatly from the two former,
which agree well in the main lines of the
story. The comparison and criticism of the
three has been very thoroughly made by Dr. At-
kinson.?

A certain Reinfrid) who had been a most
valiant soldier of William the Conqueror, moved
by sorrow at the wasted holy places at Whitby
and elsewhere in the north, entered the monastery
of Evesham with the intention of becoming a
monk capable of repairing some of the mischief.
After some time spent there, he returned to the
north and journeyed to Streoneshalch, otherwise
called Prestebi and Hwitebi.2 He approached
William de Percy, from whom he received the
ruined monastery of St. Peter, with 2 carucates
of land, and there he set to work to resuscitate
the monastic life. He was joined by many,
including Serlo de Percy, the founder’s brother,
and numerous other gifts were made to the
revived house, which followed the Benedictine
rule. From the description of the old monastery
when it was given to Reinfrid it comprised
avout forty roofless and ruined monasteria vel

% Baildon, Mon. Notes.

8 Morrell, Selby, 113 ; Priory and Peculiar, 35.

'For the first see Whitby Chartul, 1-10. For
Symeon of Durham’s account see Introd. chap. ii of
the same vol., p. xxxii, and for Stephen’s story, ibid.
p. XXxiv.

” Whitby Chartul. introd. chap. ii.

® According to Domesday held by William de
Percy of Hugh, Earl of Chester.

oratoria,* which calls to mind some of the Irish
monastic ruins at the present day with their
numerous chapels and cells.

The original gift of William de Percy ° in-
cluded the monastery of St. Peter at Whitby (or
Streoneshalch), the town and port of Whitby,
the parish church of St. Mary there, and its six
dependent chapels of Filing, Hawsker, Sneaton,
Ugglebarnby, Dunsley, and Aislaby (to follow
the modern spelling), five mills (including that of
Ruswarp, still existing), the town of Hackness
with its two mills, and the parish church of
St. Mary there, and the church of St. Peter at
Hackness ‘where our monks served God, died,
and were buried,’ and various other gifts enumer-
ated in the ‘Memorial’ in the abbot’s book.
The latter authority relates that Prior Reinfrid,
having ruled the monastery many years, was
accidentally killed at Ormesbridge by a piece of
timber falling upon him, and that he was buried
in the cemetery of St. Peter at Hackness, when
he was succeeded by Serlo de Percy as prior.®

From William the Conqueror the monastery
received two undoubted charters. One’ granted
to the church of Whitby and Serlo the prior
and the monks all the liberties over their lands
and men which by royal power he was able to
grant to any church. He also conceded and
confirmed to them and their men buying or
selling, freedom from the customs and demands
of kings, earls, and barons, and their bailiffs. No
man was to meddle with their lands, men, forests,
or game within their boundaries, nor with their
waters of the port of Whitby, or elsewhere, or
other possessions.

By the other charter,® addressed to Thomas
(de Bayeux), Archbishop (of York, 1070-1100),
Earl Alan, and Ralph Paynel, the king granted
to the church of St. Peter of Presteby and of
Whitby, and to Prior Serloand the monks there,
that their church should have the same laws and
customs as the churches of St. John of Beverley,
Ripon, and St. Peter of York. ‘The witnesses to
this deed, granted at York, were Lanfranc,
Archbishop (of Canterbury 1070-89), Osmund,
bishop,® and William de Percy.

The story of the re-founding of the monastery
which goes by the name of Stephen of Whitby,”
Abbot of St. Mary’s, York, and was evidently
intended for the glorification of Abbot Stephen,
says that he joined the re-founded abbey under
Prior Reinfrid in 1078, and that a few days
afterwards Reinfrid and the rest of the community
compelled him, by urgent solicitations, to assume

“ Whitby Chartul. 2. 5 Ibid. § Ibid.

7 Ibid. 147 (no. 184). 8 Ibid. 495 (no. 555).

® Dr. Atkinson, Whitby Chartul. 4.96 n. adds ‘ Bishop
of Winchester.’ There was no Bishop of Winchester
of that name. It was no doubt Osmund, Bishop of
Salisbury (c. 1078-99).

IOI

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the office of prior; and then soon after this,
through the combined pressure of the king and
the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, he was
unwillingly made Abbot (not prior) of Whitby.
The founder, William de Percy, seeing the im-
provements made in the place, repented of his
foundation gift, and persecuted the monks,
who were also greatly troubled by pirates and
robbers, so that they appealed to the king, who
granted them the old monastery of Lastingham,
and they began to buildthere. While they were
still at Whitby he (Stephen) went to Lasting-
ham, and received episcopal benediction as abbot
of that place as well. William de Percy, ac-
cording to this account, still continued to per-
secute Stephen and the monks of Whitby, till
eventually he drove them away to Lastingham,
where they remained a few years, and then, by
the gift of Earl Alan, they moved to St. Olave’s,
York, and eventually formed the nucleus of St.
Mary’s Abbey.

There is undoubtedly a substratum of truth
in the story, and the probability is that (as Dr.
Atkinson suggests) !! Stephen conceived himself,
and was conceived by a not insignificant party of
the brethren, a suitable successor to Reinfrid, on
the latter’s death. The Percys preferred that
one of themselves, Serlo de Percy, should succeed,
and therefore brought pressure to bear which
made Stephen with certain of his followers mi-
grate to Lastingham, and very soon afterwards to
York. The ‘ Memorial’ is quite definite in its
statement that Serlo succeeded Reinfrid, and
makes no mention whatever of Stephen. It
should be noted, too, that Serlode Percy became
Prior (not abbot) of Whitby.

From William Rufus the monastery of Whit-
by received the gift of the church of All Saints,
Fishergate, York." How the monastery was
raised from a priory to an abbey has not been
explained ; but it seems quite certain that Serlo,
as prior, retired to the cell of All Saints, Fisher-
gate, and that his successor in the superiorship of
the monastery of Whitby was his nephew Wil-
liam de Percy, who is mentioned by name as abbot
in adocument dated 1109.15 He was succeeded
by Nicholas, whose name occurs in a charter of
Pope Honorius whodied in 1130. The next abbot
was Benedict, who in consequence of troubles in
the monastery resigned about 1148 or 1149/4 and
retired to the cell of All Saint’s, Fishergate. The
monks consulted Archbishop Murdac, who refused
to confirm Benedict’s resignation unless one of
three persons nominated by himself was elected
abbot. These three were Thomas Grammaticus,
monk of St. Albans, Richard, Prior of Peterborough,
and German, Prior of Tynemouth.’ The
Prior of Peterborough was elected because he was
deemed the most prudent and of noble lineage.

2 Ibid. 5.
M Ibid. 8 (no. 3.)

" Whitby Chartul. i, p. Ixxxv.
* Thid. 329 (no. 382).
* Afterwards Abbot of Selby.

Walter, the Prior of Whitby, and one of the
monks named Martin, were sent to Peterborough.
The monks of Peterborough eventually consented,
and Martin, Abbot of Peterborough, sent him to
King Stephen, then at York. The king re-
ceived his homage as abbot, and Richard entered
the monastery on the Sunday after the octave of
Pentecost. There were thirty-six monks in the
monastery. Abbot Richard of Peterborough
ruled the house as a loving father for more than
twenty-six years, and died early in the morning
of 1 January 1175. He was buried in the
chapter-house (which he had built) by the side
of Abbot William. Duiing his abbacy a raid
was made by the King of Norway, who laid
hands on all that he could carry off, and wasted
the rest.

In the second year after the death of Abbot
Richard J, Richard de Waterville, a monk of
St. Nicholas, Angers, and Prior of Monks Kirby,
was elected Abbot of Whitby. He entered the
monastery as abbot on 29 June 1176 when
there were thirty-eight monks, who received
him with honour. Abbot Richard de Water-
ville and his convent granted the town of
Whitby a charter erecting it into a free borough ;
but this charter was rendered void in the time
of his successor, Abbot Peter, who gave 100
marks fine that the burgesses should not make use
of the liberties granted in the charter until it
had been decided in the king’s court whether
the abbot and convent had power to make the
grant.’® The burgesses of Whitby proffered
four score marks that they might have a con-
firmation,’” but eventually King John refused to
confirm it, and it became null and void. Abbot
Peter died in 1211, and the kingdom being
under an interdict the revenues of the abbey
were seized by the king, who appointed an abbey
warden.!® At the end of three years Nicholas,
the papal legate, appointed John de Evesham
abbot.'? He held office till 1222, when Roger
de Scardeburg succeeded. During his time the
abbey ‘received a great accession of territory and
wealth, and was at the zenith of its grandeur.’ 7?

The only visitation recorded was held by Arch-
bishop Melton in person on 4 October 1320,”
and six months later he sent his decretum, con-
taining a series of injunctions, many of which
are in what may be termed the ‘common form’
of such documents. The archbishop found the
monastery heavily in debt, and all possible mod-

16 Burton, Jon. Ebor. 80 n.

7 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. i, 407.

Young, Hist. of Whitby, 265 n.

® Ibid. 264. ” Ibid. 265.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 235. Itshould
be mentioned, however, to Whitby’s credit, that
Archbishop Wickwane visited the monastery in 1280,
but issued no decretum, because there was no fault
revealed on that occasion. York Archiepis. Reg. Wick-
wane, fol. 135.

102

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

eration in food, drink, and other matters was
enjoined. The revenues of their church of
Great Ayton in Cleveland, by unanimous con-
sent, were assigned for the relief of their debts.

Then follow the usual directions forbidding
the revealing of chapter secrets, inordinate going
to and fro of seculars in the cloister, infirmary,
and private parts of the monastery, and an order
that none but mature and respectable persons
were to dine in the refectory. The sick monks
were to be duly cared for, &c.

All the monks were to be uniform as to their
habit, according to the old ordinances, and were
to avoid novelties of dress. They were not, in
future, to accept money to get clothes, but were
to receive them from the vestry, giving back
their old clothes for the new ones. “The monas-
tic alms were to be duly distributed by the
almoner and his servants, and were not to be
given to workpeople, &c. The archbishop
forbade all the monks, under pain of suspen-
sion from divine rights, to go out of the monastery
with bows and arrows. In the matter of
recreation, the abbot was to grant most relaxa-
tion to those who most needed it. The prior
was to keep convent in church, refectory, dor-
mitory, and cloister, unless engaged in attending
on notable guests, or hindered by sickness, or
the needful affairs of the house, or some other
legitimate reason. The abbot was to consult
the older and more prudent members of the
convent in the difficult affairs of the house. He
was to allow no monk to reside in the family or
be in the service of any secular person without
the archbishop’s special licence. All money
coming to the house was to be delivered to two
resident bursars, who were to spend the money
as seemed best on the needs of the house. A
cellarer was to be appointed to mind the outside
affairs, and to his office was to pertain all that had
hitherto been the duty of the bursars, except the
receipt and expenditure of the money. The
abbot, on receipt of the decretum, was with five
or six mature and discreet monks to audit an
account of the goods of the house made by the offi-
cials, and make the state of the monastery known
to the whole convent in chapter. No attendant
or manservant who was burdensome to the house,
or who was defamed of the vice of incontinence
or any other grievous crime, was to be retained.
The abbot, prior and monks were not to keep
their own or other people’s hunting dogs in the
monastery, nor were they to admit any, except
those needed for the house, and the cloister doors
were to be so guarded that they could not get in.
If any dog did get in, such dog was to be caught,
et rigide castigetur.

An earlier entry” relates to William de
Wadworth, a monk of Monk Bretton, whom
Archbishop Romanus sent to Whitby in 1293

2 York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 344.

to undergo a penance. He was to be last in
quire, cloister, dormitory and refectory, and on
Wednesdays and Fridays was to fast on bread,
ale and vegetables. He was to keep convent
continuously, and to abstain from the celebration
of divine service. His offence is not definitely
stated. Two monks of Selby were also sent by
Archbishop Greenfield to Whitby for penances.”

Abbot Thomas de Malton resigned in 1322,”
when, in recognition of his faithful labours as
abbot, provision was made for him during the
remainder of his life. He was to have a chamber
called ‘Camera Astini’ with all that pertained
to it, kept in order by the abbot and convent ;
also daily for himself and a monk-associate food
and ale to the same amount as that given to
three monks. He was also to have daily provi-
sion for a valet, a cook, and a man-servant
(garcione), whom he should choose to serve him.
Further, he was to receive yearly 12 marks of
silver, and decent clothing. For his valet and
man-servant two coats (robas) of the abbot’s
livery (de liberatione abbatis\, or 25s. He was to
have the profit of the manor of Eskdale, &c., and
the forester appointed by the abbot was to find
him, at the abbot’s cost, necessaries for keeping
up the buildings and repairing the ploughs, &c.,
and reasonable amount of firebote for burning at
the abbey, and at Eskdale. He was, in addition,
to receive fifteen cartloads of turves yearly at
Whitby, and from the sacrist 3 1b. of wax at the
feast of St. Michael, and also, from the abbot’s
chamber, for lights for himself, 10 lb. of Paris
wax at All Saints. Besides these benefits, he
was to have a competent equipage for riding to
and from Whitby and Eskdale when he desired,
and when entertaining guests, what was needed
from the cellar and kitchen as the abbot had.

Thomas de Haukesgarth (Hawsker)® was
elected abbot in’ Thomas de Malton’s place, and the
archbishop (as was often the case with the larger
monasteries), claimed the right to demand on the
creation of a new head of the house the payment
of a pension to a person nominated by himself,”
in this instance William de Cliffe.

In 1328 Edward III” directed the archbishop
to appoint trustworthy men to survey the

benefices pertaining to Whitby Abbey destroyed

3 Whitby Chartul. 629, 630.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 238, &c.;
Whitby Chartul. 636.

© He must not be confused with a later Thomas
de Haukesgarth, monk, who in 1374 was sent by
Archbishop Thoresby for a two years’ sojourn in Selby
Abbey (York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 1824),
and who again appears in 1393, when Prior of Mid-
dlesbrough, as voting at the election of Peter de
Hertilpoole as abbot. (Young, op. cit. 391 n.)

*° York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 2404 ; Whitby
Chartul. 647.

* Close, 2 Edw. III, m. 28 ; York Archiepis. Reg.
Melton, fol. 249.

103

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

by the Scots, and to make new valuations, as
the abbey and benefices were unable to pay the
tenth on the old valuation. In 1380-1 there
were, besides the abbot, nineteen monks,”® and
in 1393 twenty monks voted at the election of
the abbot.”

The monastery of Whitby, in common with
all other religious houses, was often engaged in
litigation. One of the most important disputes
in which Whitby was involved was with the newly-
founded priory of Guisborough, early in the 12th
century, respecting the tithes and parochial dues
of 12 carucates of land in the parish of Middles-
brough, which church had been given to Whitby
by Robert de Brus.*! The canons of Guis-
borough claimed in right of their church of
Stainton, of which Middlesbrough Church was
a chapel only. The dispute was settled by
Robert de Brus, that the canons should receive
the tithes and dues of 6 carucates, and the monks
the dues of the others as belonging to their
church of Middlesbrough, which henceforward
was to be accounted a mother church, no longer
dependent on Stainton.**

The Abbot of Whitby was a spiritual baron,
and certain of the abbots before Edward III
were summoned to Parliament.** He had also
the use of the mitre and other pontifical insignia,
but at what time this privilege was conceded has
not been ascertained. It is alluded to in an
indult of Boniface LX of 1401 *4 to Thomas (de
Bolton) Benedictine Abbot of Whitby, to whom
and whose successors the use of the ring and
pastoral staff, as well as of the mitre, had been
granted, that they might also give solemn
benediction at table within the monastery and
elsewhere, provided no bishop or papal legate
were present.

A few wills relating to the abbey of Whitby
may be mentioned. On 29 April 1479 John
Salman of Newbiggin, Yorkshire, bequeathed his
body to be buried in the quire of the monastery
of St. Peter and St. Hilda before the high altar
in a place selected by the abbot, and among his
executors he named Dominus Thomas Pickeryng,
Abbot of the monastery of Whitby.® On

*8 In the ‘Taxatio’” of Pope Nicholas, the tempor-
alities of Whitby according to the old taxation had
been {109 105., and according to the ‘nova taxatio’
were only £50.

® Subs. R. 63, no. 12.

° Young, Hist. of Whithy, 391, n.

He gave Middlesbrough Church on condition
that there should be certain of the monks ‘ qui Deo
et S. Hyldae de Wytebi deserviant’ ; Whitby Chartul.
g5. Middlesbrough was afterwards the most import-
ant cell the abbey possessed.

* Young, Hist. of Whitby, 327. [An account of
the ‘disputes and agreements’ of the abbey is given
by Dr. Young, op. cit. chap. xi.]

% Burton, Aon. Ebor. 81.

4 Cal. of Pspsl Letters, v, 398.

Reg. of Wills, York, iv, fol. 170.

10 July 1474 Nicholas Langechester, burgess of
Scarborough, bequeathed 25. nove fabrice monasterit
de Whitby® On 12 October 1474 Dompnus
John Nyghtyngale, rector of Sneaton, bequeathed
his body to be buried in his monk’s habit in
the church of St. Peter and St. Hilda, Whitby
(in which house he had been professed), in the
north part of the church. ‘This is interesting as
a case where a Benedictine monk had been
appointed to a secular cure.*”

The abbey was surrendered by Henry Davell,
the abbot, and the convent on 14 December
1539, the clear annual value being estimated
in the Valor Ecclesiasticus at £437 25. gd.*°

Priors oF WHITBY

Reinfrid c. 1078
Serlo de Percy, before 1087

Assots oF Wuitsy *°

William de Percy," occurs 1109

Nicholas,” died 1139

Benedict,* resigned 1148

Richard I, succeeded 1148, died 1175
Richard II ** (de Waterville) succeeded 1177
Peter,*® before 1190, died 1211

(A vacancy of three years)

John de Evesham,” appointed 1214, died 1222
Roger de Scardeburg,*® 1223, died 1244
John de Staingrave, (sub-prior) succeeded
1245,” resigned 1258 *™

William de Brineston, 1259," died 1265 ™
Robert de Langetoft,®! 1265, died 1278
William de Kirkham,*? 1278, died 1304
Thomas de Malton, 1304," resigned 1322 4
Thomas de Hawkesgarth, 1322,” resigned

1355°°

% Ibid. fol. 217. 7 Ibid. fol. 2234,

8 L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (2), 683.

° Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 83.

© According to the story of Stephen, Abbot of York,
he succeeded Reinfrid first as prior and was then made
abbot. Asto this see the history of the abbey.

" Whitby Chartul. 239 (no. 382).

“ Charlton, Hist. Whitby, 86.

8 Whitby Chartul. 8.

“ Tbid. 10 ; formerly Prior of Peterborough.

“ Thid.

“© Burton, Mon. Ebor. 80 ; Young, Hist. Whitby, 264.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. i, 407. 8 Ibid.

*@ Cal. Pat. 1258-66, p. 7.

5 Thid. 8. 2 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. i, 407.

5} The first Abbot of Whitby summoned to Parlia-
ment, ibid.

* Tbid.

© Proclamation of an election, 7 Kal. Nov. 1304, of
an Abbot of Whitby, no name given, York Archiepis.
Reg. sed. vac. fol. 43.

* Thid. Melton, fol. 2394.

% Thid. “ Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 734.

104

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

William de Burton, succeeded 1355 °7

John de Richmund,®® succeeded 1374, died
1393

Peter de Hartlepool,®® 1393, died 1394

Thomas de Bolton,® 1394, died 1413

John de Skelton, 1413, died 1437 °*

Hugh Ellerton, D.D.,® 1437, died 1462

Thomas Pickering,® 1462, died 1475

William Colson, 1475,® died 1499 ©

John Lovell,” 1499, died 1501

William Evesham,® succeeded 1501

John Benested, 1505, died 1514”

John Bednell,” 1514, died 15167

John Whitby,” confirmed 7 July 1516

Thomas York,” confirmed 18 January 1517

John Hexham alas Topcliffe, confirmed
13 April 1527,” resigned 1537

Henry Davell,” elected 1538, surrendered the
abbey 14 December 1539

The 13th-century circular seal,” 2in. in
diameter, shows St. Hilda, the patron saint,
standing under a canopy and holding crozier and
book, between two altars each having a priest
before it consecrating the chalice. Above the
head of each priest is a dove, having a wafer in
his beak, and above the birds are the sun and
moon. ‘The legend is:

SVBVENIAT FAMVL’ NOBIL’ HILDA SVIS

The 13th-century seal” ad causas shows
St. Peter standing, with the legend :

SIGILL’ SCI PETRI ET SCE HILDE DE WYTEBY AD
CAS

5. THE PRIORY OF MIDDLESBROUGH,
CELL OF WHITBY

Robert de Brus,’ founder of the priory of
Guisborough, granted the church of St Hilda of

7 York Archiepis Reg. Thoresby, fol. 734.
5° Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. i, 407.

§ Tbid. ® Tbid. % Ibid,
61a Cal. Pat. 1436-41, p. 18.
® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. i, 407. ® Thid.

* Prior of Middlesbrough. York Archiepis. Reg.
W. Booth, fol. 644.

§ Ibid. G. Nevill, fol. 174.

6 Burton, Mon. Ebor. 80.

*’ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. i, 408. Ibid,

Thid. ” L. and P. Hen. VIII, i, 4720.

” Dugdale, Mon. Angi. i, 408.

” L. and P. Hen. VIII, ii (2), 1951.

™ York Archiepis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 18.

™ Ibid. fol. 33. He was Prior of St. Andrew’s,
Northampton ; L. and P. Hen. VIII, ii (2), 3833.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 86.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angl. i, 408. 7 Thid,

® Cat. of Seah, BM. 4328, D.C., E. 39.

® Thid. 4329, xxv, 17.

1 Whitby Chartul. 95 (no. 91).

3 105

Middlesbrough, with consent of his wife Agnes
and Adam his son, to the abbey of Whitby,
with land in Newham, on condition that there
should be monks serving God and St. Hilda in
the church of Middlesbrough, who might be
sufficiently maintained by the revenues of that
church, the surplus being received by the mother
church of Whitby.

Dr. Atkinson argues? that this grant was in
the nature of a confirmation of a previous gift to
Whitby, made by Hugh, Earl of Chester, whose
lands had passed to Robert de Brus, as in the
convention between the abbey of Whitby and
the priory of Guisborough, made in the presence
of Robert de Brus, Whitby laid its claim to the
ecclesiastical dues of Middlesbrough propter donum
Hugonis Cestrensis comitis.

Various local grantors made a number of
gifts of land in the neighbourhood either to the
church of Middlesbrough alone, or to the church
of Middlesbrough and the monks of Whitby
jointly.’

A dispute, already mentioned, between the
Augustinian canons of Guisborough and the
Benedictines of Whitby ended in the church of
Middlesbrough being made a mother church,
independent of Stainton. The gift of Middles-
brough Church to Whitby was confirmed by
Henry I, and in 1130 by Archbishop Thurstan.®

From some unknown cause the cell became
very much impoverished, and at any rate in the
middle of the 15th century, if not much earlier,
was only occupied by a prior and an associate
monk, In1452° Archbishop W. Booth granted
leave to Robert Godale, monk of Whitby and
prior of the cell of Middlesbrough, that, owing to
its poverty, the prior or hismonk-associate might
serve the parish church and minister to the
parishioners in place of a secular chaplain, thus
saving the expenses of the latter. This leave the
archbishop repeated in 14597 to William Colson,
who had then become prior.

In November 1521 Thomas (York),® Abbot
of the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul (sic),
of Whitby, informed William Clarkson, Prior of
the cell of St. Hilda the virgin of ‘ Myddilburge
juxta Teyse,’ and Thomas Braben, monk of the
said cell, that he had commissioned William
Johnson prior, and John Topcliffe,® bursar of

? Ibid. introd. chap. p. xlvi.

* The Middlesbrough charters mostly occur in
ibid. pp. 95-116. Burton, Mon. Ebor. 83, 84, has
a list of them in alphabetical order. They are again
set out with identifications, &c., in Ancient Middles~
brough, by R. L. Kirby (Woolston), 1900.

* Whitby Chartul. 214 (no. 271).

® Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. v, 631.

° Yorks. Arch. Journ. xviii, 71, quoting York
Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 1473.

” York Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 644.

* Conventual Leases (P.R.O.), Yorks. no. 994.

* Alias John Hexham, Abbot of Whitby 1527-37.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Whitby, to visit the cell, and make canonical
corrections.

Accerding to a return made in 1527 the clear
annual value of the priory of ‘ Middilburgh’ was
£12.° The return in 15351) of the receipts
refers only to the early gifts to the cell already
alluded to, and it appears from this record that
the cell had received no additional gifts afterward.
It also appears that 12d. in money was spent
weekly in alms to the poor folk of Middlesbrough,
according to the ordinance of Robert Brus, the
founder,” for his soul.

John Hexham the late Abbot of Whitby
(1527-37), who as John Topcliffe, bursar, visited
the cell in 1521, obtained from the convent of
Whitby a lease of their property at Mliddles-
brough (then worth £25 18s. 5d.), and of this he
was in possession at the Dissolution. He con-
tinued at Middlesbrough as ‘occupier’ of the
property there, and died in 1557, when he left
10s. to the poor of Middlesbrough, and 155. 4d.
to the township.¥

Priors oF MIppLesBROUGH

Thomas de Hawkesgarth, occurs 1386," 1393

Stephen de Ormesby, occurs 1397-8 "8

Robert Godale, occurs 1438,!7 145238

William Coulson, occurs 1459,)° 1471 7°

William Clarkson, occurs 1521,?! resigned
before 1527

John Hexham, occurs 1527” (in April of
which year he was elected Abbot of
Whitby)

6& THE PRIORY OF ALL SAINTS,
FISHERGATE, YORK, CELL TO
WHITBY ABBEY

In the vicinity of Fishergate Bar, York, and
probably on a portion of the present cattle

” Subs. R. 64, no. 303.

" Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 632.

“ Evidently he and not the Earl of Chester was
reckoned the original founder, in spite of the statement
in the Convento.

8 Yorks. Arch. Journ. xviii, 72.

Whitby Chartul. 504.

* Thid. 316 ; Young, Hist. W’sitby, 391 n.

% Yorks. Arch. Journ. xviii, 68, citing York Archiepis,
Reg. Newark, fol. 214.

” Baildon, Mon. Noses, 1, 138.

8 Yorks. Arch. Journ. xviii, 71.

* York Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 644.

7 York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 30.

*' Conventual Leases (P.R.O.), Yorks. no. 994.

"LI. and P. Hen. VIII, v, 907 (1532), quoted
Whitby Chartul. 719, where a proposal is cited as made
19 Hen. VIII (1527-8) that John Hexham, Prior
of Middlesbrough, should be made Abbot of Whitby,
and William Clarkson made ‘ Prior of Medilsburgh
and Newham.’ This would mean for a second time,
and he must have resigned between 1521 and 1527.

* Ibid.

market, there stood in Norman times the parish
church of All Saints! This church was granted
by William Rufus (1087-1100) to the P.ior and
convent of Whitby, with all its belongings, as a
perpetual alms, on the condition that some of the
monks should always be resident there and that
they should pray for the king and his heirs.?

The election of William de Percy as first
Abbot of Whitby took place in 1109,° and a
charter of Nigel de Albini, addressed to Thomas,
Archbishop of York (1108-14), shows that
Serlo, formerly Prior of Whitby, had then be-
come prior of the cell. There is no reference to
Whitby in the document, but a special mention
of All Saints, naming Serlo as the prior and
referring to ‘ the other monks of that place.’ 4

The gift of All Saints to Whitby was con-
firmed by Archbishop Thurstan (1114-40) ‘ free
and clear from every episcopal usage,’ and with
the same liberties as Beverley and Ripon Churches
possessed.°

Pope Eugenius II (1145-53) made a con-
firmation to Whitby of its various possessions,
among them being All Saints, Fishergate.®
The charter was addressed to Abbot Benedict,
who upon his resignation in 1£48 retired to
the cell of All Saints,”

The cell is named in two charters of confir-
mation of about this date, one of King Stephen
(1135-54),° the other of Archbishop Murdac
(1145-53).’ Inthe latter All Saints was ratified
as ‘a proper cell forthe monks of Wyteby free
and clear from every episcopal usage.’

The revenues of the cell were derived from
certain lands at Bustardthorpe which had been
given ad hoc, and some other properties in the
neighbourhood.” The land at Bustardthorpe !!
was doubtless that restored to ‘Serlo Prior,’—the
‘half carucate of land in Thorp with the dwellings
on it,’—by Nigel de Albini,!? mentioned in a re-
markable deed printed in Surtees’ History and
Antiquities of Durham," and quoted by Dr. Atkin-
son.# But the accounts were not kept separate,
says Dr. Young,’® from the parent house at

' Drake, Ebor. 250.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. i,75 ; Whitby Chartul. (Surt.
Soc. Ixix), 5.

3 Baildon, Mon. Notes.

“Whitby Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), 206-7; Atkinson,
Whitby (1894 ed.), 110, 111.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 84 ; Charlton, Whitby, 86.

° Whithy Chartul. 119.

7 Charlton, Whitby, 110 ; Whitby Chartul. 8.

® Charlton, Whitby, 114. * Ibid. 117.

” Young, Whitby, 359.

" Bustardthorpe was between Bishopthorpe and
Middlethorpe ; the whole district was Thorp, it was
afterwards divided into Bishopthorpe, Bustardthorpe,
Middlethorpe, Nunthorpe and Clementhorpe.

° Whitby Chartul. 206-7.

8 Op. cit. ili, 395.

“Whitby Chartul, 207.

* Young, Mf titby, 359.

106

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Whitby. It was a small cell, with but few
monks resident, in the valuation of York churches
1413-22, the value of All Saints Church being
put down as £1.'* Doubtless the needs of the
monks would be supplied from the abbey at
Whitby, all deficiencies being made up from the
abbey revenues. Every trace of the small priory
has disappeared, and as many changes have taken
place in that part of York where it used to stand
it is difficult to locate the site of the cell.

7. GOATHLAND, QUASI-CELL OF
WHITBY

The ecclesiastical establishment at Goathland
was at first a hermitage. Henry I,! bya charter
addressed to Archbishop Thomas (1109-14),
Nigel de Albini and Osbert, Sheriff of Yorkshire,
granted to Osmund the priest and the brothers
of ‘Godelane’ that place for entertaining the
poor, and the brothers were to hold it free of all
interference from the king’s foresters and others,
‘in perpetual alms, and Nigel de Albini and the
‘sheriff were to give them seisin.

. By a later charter,’ addressed to the same
persons, the king granted that Osmund the
priest and the brothers of Goathland might
transfer themselves and their hermitage with
all its appurtenances to the Abbot and convent of
Whitby, in perpetuity, to be received to the
habit of religion in the chapter of the monks,
The king enjoined the abbot and monks to
receive the brethren to the rule of St. Benedict,
and confirmed the hermitage with all its appur-
tenances to the abbey of Whitby.

King John* confirmed the grants made by
Henry I, which included also the gift of a caru-
cate of land, and from a certain William Boie
the brothers had also received atoft in Lockington,
both of which were transferred to Whitby.
There is really no evidence that the hermitage
of Goathland, after it passed into the possession
of Whitby, became a cell of the abbey. Appar-
ently the hermitage had at one time or other
been turned into a house for the abbot. On
22 December 1538* Henry Davell, Abbot of

’ Whitby, leased to Robert Cokerell of ‘Godland’
for eighty-one years at a yearly rent of 205. ‘one
fermehold in Godland called the Abbot House.’
Nothing is known of Goathland after it passed
to Whitby.

8 Drake, Ebor. 234.

1 Whitby Chartul. 161. Dr. Atkinson gives good
reasons for expanding the ‘TT Archiepiscopo’ of the
charter into Thomae rather than, as Burton and the
Monasticon, into Turstino.

? Thid.

3 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 545.

4 Conventual Leases (P.R.O)., Yorks. no. 929.

8. HACKNESS, QUASI-CELL OF
WHITBY

Although the name of Hackness is so closely
associated with that of the monastery of Whitby,
both its relation to the post-Conquest Benedictine
monastery and its history are somewhat obscure.

William de Percy gave to the re-founded
monastery not merely the site at Whitby on
which the earlier house had stood, but also the
church of St. Peter at Hackness, and certain
land there, which in the Domesday Survey is
spoken of as the land of St. Hilda.® When
Prior Reinfrid was accidently killed at Ormes-
bridge he was buried at Hackness.

It would seem, though there are discrepancies
in the dates, that Prior Serlo and the monks left
Whitby for Hackness® owing to the depredation
by robbers, who hid themselves in the woods in
the daytime, and the over-sea pirates who
ravaged the monastery at Whitby. They do not
seem to have remained very long at Hackness,
and Serlo died about 1100 at Whitby. There
is no doubt that some of the monks remained at
Hackness and that afterwards there was a cer-
tain undetermined number of Whitby monks
there ; but, in the common acceptance of the
term, Hackness cannot be correctly spoken of as
a distinct cell, such for instance as was Middles-
brough. It had no separate government under
a subordinate prior, and its accounts were entered
in the compotus rolls of the abbey with those of
the other manors and granges. It was, in fact,
part of the corporate body of the monastery of
Whitby under the direct government of the
abbot and convent, and was never a separate
subordinate establishment, dependent on the
parent house, as a cell is generally understood to
have been. It is spoken of as a manerium,’ and
not a cell, as Middlesbrough is. Unfortunately
its subsequent history is a blank, all that is
known is that a certain number of the Whitby
monks generally resided there. Burton says
their number was probably determined by the
abbot,® and it is said elsewhere that at the
Dissolution there were four monks at Hackness.®

g. ST. MARY’S ABBEY, YORK
On the north side of the Ouse at York there

stood in pre-Conquest days the church or monas-
terium of St. Olave,! which in the days of the
Conqueror had come, together with 4 acres of

5 Young, Hist. Whitby, 257.

® Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. ii, 634,no. 2. They began
to construct a monasterium at the church of St. Mary
Hackness (not St. Peter’s) also granted by William de
Percy. ” Whitby Chartul. 746.

® Burton, Mon. Ebor. 83.

° Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iii, 634.

See account of Whitby Abbey, above.

107

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

land around it, into the hands of Alan Rufus,
son of Eudo, Count of Bretagne.? This church
and land were given by the earl to Stephen, a
monk of Whitby, on which to found a Benedic-
tine abbey.?

Archbishop Thomas of Bayeux and _ his
canons looked askance upon the settlement of
Benedictines in York in the neighbourhood of
the Minster.* Alan’s right to the church and
land was disputed by the cathedral authorities,
the archbishop himself laying claim to them.°
The matter was eventually settled by the king
giving to the archbishop the church of St.
Stephen in York instead of St. Olave’s, and the
abbot further propitiated the prelate by a gift of
land in Clifton and Heslington. In 1088 King
William Rufus visited York and saw how in-
adequate were the premises at St. Olave’s for
the requirements of the brethren, and he con-
ferred upon them additional lands adjacent to
their dwelling, and the year after he himself
laid the foundation stone of a new house, which
was dedicated to the honour of the Blessed
Virgin, the Danish ascription of their old church
being superseded.®

The abbey had not long been founded before
a number of cells were established and imade
dependent upon it. That of Wetheral in
Cumberland seems to have been the first.
Afterwards there followed St. Bees in the same
county, St. Martin’s near Richmond, Rumburgh
in Suffolk, Sandtoft and Haines in Lincolnshire,
St. Mary Magdalen at Lincoln, and later on
Warmington in Northumberland and Marsk in
Notts.’ At what date the cell of Wetheral
was founded is not known for certain,® though
Drake says it was given to the abbey at the time
of the foundation by the Earl of Cumberland.®
It was at all events confirmed to the abbey in
1131-2 by King Henry I. Henry I also con-
firmed to the abbey its various possessions, and
made it quit of aids and tallages, enjoying the
same privileges as those possessed by the minsters
at York and Beverley.”

During the abbacy of Geoffrey," 1131-2, the
Benedictine rule had become somewhat slack,
and some of the brethren of St. Mary’s were
pining for a more rigid rule, such as Cistercian
foundations would offer; the prior, Richard,
and the sub-prior were among the number. The

? Lawton, Relig. Houses, 36.

3 Drake, Eboracum (small ed.), ii, 221 ; Harl. MS.
236 (Chartulary of St. Mary's), fol. 1.

* Fasti Eboracenses, 156.

5 Lawton, Relig. Houses, 37.

SIbid.; Drake, Edcracum, 579.

* Brit. Assoc. Handbk. (1906), 146 ; Mon. Angl. iii,

44.
eel Relig. Houses, 38.
9 Drake, Efora-um (small ed.), ii, 227.
10 Pat. 33 Edw. I, m. 23.
" NMiscalled Godfrey in the Monasticon (iii, 538).

abbot tried to put an end to the movement,
but the malcontents appealed to the archbishop,
Thurstan, who sympathized with them ; and
finally in 1132 thirteen of them left St. Mary’s
amid a turbulent scene and found their way to
the valley of the Skell, where the Cistercian Abbey
of Fountains was established, Richard being
chosen as its first abbot.!?

A trouble of a different kind came to the
abbey five years later, when the house was
much injured in the great fire of 1137."

The abbey, as we have seen, was founded in
the reign of William I, and ona greater scale by
William II. Henry I confirmed its possessions
and privileges,!* which Henry II afterwards
ratified,!® as also did Henry III and most of his
successors.!§ ‘These privileges were very great :
(1) exemption from royal exactions; (2) im-
munity from all pleas and quarrels ; (3) soc, sac
tol, tem, infangthef and utfangthef’’; (4) freedcm
from attendance and service at county court;,
tithings, wapentakes, and hundreds; (5) the
possession of a prison and gallows. Moreover:
the town of Bootham with its fair, market and
liberties belonged to them '8: and a vast district
in and around York became known as ‘the:
Liberty of St. Mary.’

The Archbishop of York had the right of
making an annual visitation of the abbey, but
the first extant record of any archiepiscopal
survey was one made by the southern Primate.
In 1195 Geoffrey, Archbishop of York,
was suspended from his spiritual duties, and
Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, went to York
as papal legate. On Tuesday 13 June he visited
the abbey of St. Mary, being received by the
monksin solemn procession, Afterwards, assem-
bled in the chapter-house, the monks complained
of the incompetency of Robert their abbot
through weakness and physical infirmity, and
Archbishop Hubert deposed him from the
abbacy.”” After a short vacancy the king gave
the abbacy in 1197 to Robert Longchamp,
Prior of Ely, brother of the chancellor.7!_ On
6 March 1226 a papal mandate was issued
to Archbishop Walter Gray, authorizing him
to visit the abbey once a year, or twice if
need arose, and correct any abuses by counsel
of the religious and sometimes of five or six

of the better canons of the cathedral church,” ‘

and on 26 February in the following year a papa
mandate was issued to the abbot and convent

” Fasti Ebor. 204-7.

3 Aller, Hist. of Yorks. 57.

™ Pat. 33 Edw. I, m. 23.

% Drake, Eboracum (small ed.), ii, 228.
7 Pat. 10 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 21 d.

3 Drake op. cit. li, 230.

9 Fasti Ebor. 266.

® Drake, Eboracum, 424.

” Ralph de Diceto, Hist. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 151.
* Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 108.

"Ibid.

108

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

it they were to receive the archbishop in order
it he might correct what was amiss according
the rule of St. Benedict.”
About this time there seems to have been
ne abuse on the part of the abbey
thorities with respect to their indults and
vileges. These were suspected by the arch-
hop and certain skilled lawyers as being false,
don 5 May 1225 the pope ordered them to
submitted to himself for purposes of examina-
n2* On15 March next following a papal
ter was directed to the archbishop quashing an
jult in the name of Pope Celestine giving
wer to the abbot to excommunicate invaders
the abbey properties, as it had been found to
false, and revoking anything that had been
ne. by its aid.”
Pope Honorius III, it appears, had ordered the
xt and convent to make provision for twelve
‘man clerks in churches of which the patron-
e belonged to them. ‘This impoverished them
nsiderably, so that some who wished to join
2m had to buy their own habits. In considera-
in of this Pope Gregory IX granted licence to
e house to convert to their use the church
Kirkby Lonsdale and to put in a chaplain
serve it.2® Similar licences were granted in
nnexion with the churches of St. Michael,
opleby,” and Gainford, in the diocese of
urham.”® An indult to the abbot to use the
itre, ring, pastoral staff, sandals, and other
ntifical insignia, with the faculty of blessing
stments and giving solemn benediction when
1 bishop or legate was present,?® granted by
nocent IV in 1245, was confirmed by Pope
artin V on 13 January 1418, Thomas the then
bot receiving the further privilege for himself
d successors to bless altar linen, &c., to receive
ws of chastity, to bless and give the veil, &c.
d to give solemn benediction at mass and
‘er matins and vespers and at table, in the
sence of a Catholic bishop or papal legate.
Many of the dissensions and troubles of the
use arose from its relations with the mayor,
uncil and citizens of York. In 1262 a
mber of the abbot’s men were actually killed
a quarrel, some of his houses in Bootham
stroyed, and the abbot, Simon de Warwick,
9k to flight and was absent from the house
- a period of two years. A commission
is granted in 1311 on complaint by the abbot
at the mayor and bailiffs ‘levied toll, murage,
ntage and pavage on his men coming to
e city with their goods, and also carriage,
hough by the king’s confirmation of the
arters of his predecessors the abbot’s men are
empt from such ; (that they) hindered his men

* Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 116.
* Ibid. 102. * Ibid. 109.
7 Tbid. 188. * Tbid. 191.
® Tbid. vii, 58.

1 Lawton, Reig. Houses, 37.

*Thid. 190.
* Ibid. 222.

coming to the city to buy provisions for him and
his convent, compelled his men staying within
his liberty of Bouthum to contribute, together
with the commonalty of the city, divers aids,
tallages, and contributions assessed upon the
commonalty, and carried away their goods, and
did not permit them to replevy the same.’ #? In
this same year one of the monks, Stephen de
Oustwyk, was assaulted at the cellof ‘la Maude-
leyne’ at Lincoln and imprisoned.

On 22 March 1319 Archbishop Melton
held a visitation of the abbey, and on 4 May
1319" he issued a long decretum to the abbot
and convent. No serious offences had been
disclosed at the visitation, but emphasis was laid
on the unsatisfactory financial condition of the
house, which was owing no less a sum than
£4,029 2s. 14d. Needless expense, therefore,
was strictly prohibited, and in the matter of
granting corrodies and pensions the convent
was to be consulted. The monks were for-
bidden to shave one another, and the abbey was
forthwith to be provided with uno barbitonsore
artificial, who was to shave both young
and old monks. Once a year at least, twice
if possible, the abbot, prior, or the presiding
monk was to call to his aid two of the senior
monks and cause each monk to open his chest
and carol for inspection. In case of refusal they
were to be broken open, and any article illicitly
received and secreted was to be confiscated to
the common use, The sacrist, as formerly, was
to have the tithes, rentsand provisions pertaining
to his office, and was to keep in order the
church ornaments, the clock, the ornaments of
the stalls, the J/ectos sacristarum, &c. He was to
provide tapers, wine, light and other essentials,
especially the fourteen tapers on every great
festival. The service which the abbey was
under obligation to perform for John de Ponte
and Thomas de Fridethorp was to be duly said.
The tithes of the chapel of Croom, and an
annual rent of 20s. for the benefit of the sick
in the infirmary * was being used for the whole
as wellas the sick: this was to be remedied.
The common seal was to be kept in the treasury
and the statutes and Melton’s injunctions were
to be read in chapter once a month.*$

The dispute between the abbey and citizens
was renewed and greatly intensified in 1334. The
citizens complained that the abbot usurped their

% Pat. 4 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 5 d.

8 Ibid. 5 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 20d., 19d.

*“ York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 134.

In the York Museum is the mortar of the infir-
mary, made in the early 14th century. It is a beautiful
example, made of bell-metal and weighing 76 lb.
and on it is the inscription : ‘Mortariu. Sci. Johis.
Ewangel. de Ifirmaria. Be. Marie. Ebor. Fr. Wills.
de Touthorp. me. fecit. A°D. mcceviii.”? (For de-
scription and plate see Museum Handbk. 185-6).

*° York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 133-4.

109

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

rights and liberties within the city and suburb,
refused to allow measures to be tested, abused
the power of excommunication for base motives,
interfered with the city bailiffs, and assumed the
office of a coroner, &c., &c.” The abbot ably
defended himself, denying the various charges of
illegality. These angry disputes went on until
at last Archbishop Thoresby brought them to
an agreement in 1343.8

In the year 1344 Archbishop Zouch made
a visitation of St. Mary’s. He questioned by
what right the abbot and convent received the
tithes, portions and pensions from a great many
places which were specified. They exhibited a
number of papal bulls and other ‘evidences,’ and
the archbishop declared their title good and suffi-
cient.

The public records abound with references
to the great Benedictine abbey of St. Mary.
The abbot had his seat in Parliament ; exercised
Jurisdiction over many towns, villages, churches
and dependent houses *°; was frequently in a
position to furnish loans to the sovereign * ;
supplied necessaries in the time of war *?; acted
as collector at various periods for tenths and
fifteenths,* papal and royal; had his London
residence and several country houses “4; and had
numerous possessions in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire
and many other counties. Licences in mort-
main granted to the abbey * forthe acquisition of
various properties were numerous, and also the
appropriation of churches,*® the royal permission
to elect new abbots when vacancies arose, and
the seizure and restitution of the temporalities.*”

In addition to manors, lands and_ vills,
the advowsons of a great number of churches
belonged to the abbey, many of which were ap-
propriated and vicarages ordained in some of
them. Inthe city of York there were seven
such churches; in other parts of the county
thirty-three ; and several in other counties.”

Indults were granted to the abbot, “Thomas,
in 1415 and 1417, to hear the confessions of
the monks and to grant absolution, imposing
penance. This abbot was elected Bishop of
Rochester * on 7 April 1421.

* Pat. 8 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 23.

*S Drake op. cit. (small ed.) ii, 231; Edcracum, 434.

* Men. Ang. ili, 566-7, quoting York Archiepis.
Reg. Zouch, fol. 9.

“” Brit. Assoc. Hand3%. (1906), 146.

“Pat. g Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 30.

* Pat. 7 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 13.

“Ibid. m. 28.

“ Brit, dssce. Handbk. (1906), 145.

“ Pat. 8 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 7.

“Ibid. 32 Edw. I,m. 22.

“Tbid. 13 Ric. I, pt. i, m. 20.

* Lawton, Relig. Houses, 38, 39.

Archbishop Lee visited St. Mary’s Abbey on
7 September 1534,°! and issued his injunctions the
following year, 11 September 1535." He ordered
that the Benedictine rule should be strictly kept,
and that offending monks should be duly
punished. The abbot, whom he addressed as
John,®? was charged with being, according to
report, too familiar with Elizabeth Robinson, a
married woman, of Overton. He was ordered
to abstain from all intercourse with her or any
other suspect woman, and to reside always in
the monastery unless hindered by legitimate
cause. The monks were ordered not to wear
worsted or other costly garments, as some of
them had been in the habit of doing, but all
were to wear garments of cheap material and
of the same colour. Once a year, in the presence
of the whole convent or certain members elected
ad hoc, the abbot should render an account
of the state of the house and his administration ol
it. Wine was not to be sold in the abbey prez
cincts nor any wine-stand permitted therein, anc
the abbot was not to use silk in his hood oj}
sleeves, nor gilt spurs, saddles or bridles. Thesd
injunctions were issued from Bishopthorpe on
11 September 1535, just a week before the king
inhibited the archbishop from making any further
visitations.®4

In the Valor Ecclesiasticus © a very interesting
account is given of the alms and distributions
at St. Mary’s Abbey. There was a distribu-
tion made daily to three poor people at the
time of the high mass, for the soul of William
Nesfield and of his foundation. Like alms
were distributed on the anniversary of Dom.
William Wells, formerly Bishop of Rochester.
A ‘widow-right’ was distributed every Sunday
to ten widows, each receiving 1d. Similarly, of
the foundation of William the Conqueror, 2
distribution was made to the ten above-namec
widows and to ten other poor people, callec
‘Frereright,’ and to other poor people in breac
and ale, of 105 qrs. of wheat at 5s. per qr. and
of 135 qrs. of barley malt among the said pooi
and others in want coming to the monastery or
Wednesdays and Saturdays each week. There
was also the interesting educational charity
already dealt with.®

With the passage of the years the propertie:
of various kinds belonging to St. Mary’s became
enormous. In the Taxation of 1291 they are
valued at £758 35. 4d., and at the Dissolutior
the abbey was worth no less an annual sum thar

” Yorks. Arch. Fourn. (1902), 425.

Ibid. 426.

The abbot of this date was William Thorntor
alias Dent (L. and P. Hen. VIII, xv, 552).

“Yorks. Arch. Journ. (1902), 446-7, 426.

°° Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 6.

*® V.C.H. Yorks. i, 421.

*” For details see Msn. Angi. iii, 561.

110

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

£2, 085 15. 5$4.° The dissolution took place
in 1539, the house being surrendered by the
abbot, William Thornton, alias Dent, and
fifty monks on 26 November, when the abbey
and the site fell to the crown. The abbot
received a pension of 400 marks, the prior,
Guy Kelsaye, one of 20 marks, and on the
pension lists are the names of forty-seven other
monks, but the amount of their pension is not
specified, the place being left blank.

ABBoTs oF St. Mary’s ©

Stephen de Whitby, first abbot, died 1112

Richard **

Geoffrey, occurs 1122, 1128," died 1132

Severinus ® or Savaric,®* died 1161

Clement, died 1184

Robert de Harpham, deposed 1195 *

Robert de Longchamp, appointed 1197,°
died 1239

William de
1244

Thomas de Wardhull, elected 1244," died 1258

Simon de Warwick, elected 1258," died 1296”

Benedict de Malton, succeeded 1296,” occurs
1302,” resigned 1303”

John de Gilling, 1303,"8 died 1313

Alan de Nesse, 1313,” died 1331

Thomas de Multon, 1331,” resigned 1359

William Maneys, occurs 1380,” died 13827

Roundel, occurs 1241, died

58 Speed.
£1,550 75. odd. ;
gross £2,091 45.
Mon. Ang). iii, 540.

° 0. and P. Hen. VIII, xv, 552.

® Lawton, Relig. Houses, 39.

6 7. and P. Hen. VIII, loc. cit.

* From Mon. Angi. iii, 538, 539, except where
otherwise stated.

%a The date of Richard’s death and Geoffrey’s
election is erroneously given in Mon. Angl. as 1131.

8% Hist. of Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 199 3 ili, 51-2.

§ Symeon of Durham, Hist. Regum (Rolls Ser), 201.

69 Hist. of Cb. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 222.

6 Tn Mon. Angi. (iii, 538), he is said to have died
and been succeeded by Robert Longchamp in 1189 ;
but an abbot Robert was deposed in 1195 (see above),
and Longchamp, who was elected in 1197, was
called ‘ Robertus secundus’ in Chron. Mon. de Melsa
(Rolls Ser.), i, 354+

6 Ralph de Diceto, Hist. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 151-2.

Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 231.

* Cal. Pat. 1232-47, p. 436.

8 Ibid. 1247-55, p. 640.

The Monasticon gives the value as
The Vabr Eccl. 1535 gives the
7-4. the nett £1,650 os. 74d.

® Pat. 24 Edw. I, m. 14. Ibid.
7 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 231.
Pat, 31 Edw. I, m. 17. 78 Thid,

™ Thid. 6 Edw. I, Pt. ii, m. 3.
Ibid. 7 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 20.
* Thid. 5 Edw. Il, pt. i, m. 14.
7 Tbid. pt. ii, m. 335 pt. i, m. 3.
* Ibid. 4 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 42.
% Ibid. 6 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 33.

William Bridford or Brydford, 1382," died
138

ee Stayngreve, 1389," died a398

Thomas Pygot, 1398, died 1405 ®

Thomas de Spofforth, succeeded 1405, re-
signed 1421, Bishop of Hereford 1422

William Dalton, succeeded 1422, died 1423"

William Wells, succeeded 1423,*° Bishop of
Rochester, 1436

Roger Kirkby, elected 1437, died 1438 *”

John Cottingham, elected 14.38, died 1464 ®

Thomas Booth, succeeded 1464,” resigned
1485,°! died same year ”

William Sevons, elected 1485,°% Bishop of
Carlisle 1495, Bishop of Durham, 1502,
continued abbot till 1502

Robert Worhope, succeeded 1502

Edmund Thornton, elected 1507

Edmund Whalley, elected 1521,
1530%

William Thornton or Dent, elected 1530,
last abbot, surrendered 1539”

occurs

The 11th-century seal ® is a vesica, 2g in. by
2%in., with a design of our Lady crowned and
seated, holding the Child and a book. Above
the Child is the sun and on the left side is a (?)
lily. Only a few words—

SIGILLVM SANCTE MARIE...

remain of the broken legend. The counterseal,
a vesica Ifin. by 2in., shows an arm and
hand holding a long cross, with the legend—

SIGNVM SALVTIFERVM

The seals of two early abbots are in the
British Museum. That of Robert de Long-
champ,” 1197-1239, is avesica, 23in. by 18in.,
with the abbot standing and holding crozier and
book. The legend is—

SIGILL’? ROBERTI DEI GRACIA ABBIS SCE MARIE
EBOR’,

® Ibid. m. 27.

* Ibid. m. 12.

® Cal. Pat. 1405-8, p. 15 ; occurs as John Pygot,
1405 ; Reg. Corpus Christi Guild (Surt. Soc.).

* Pat. 1 Hen. VI, pt. i, m. 15.

% Ibid. pt. ii, m. 12, 13.

*! Tbid. 13 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 20.

* Cal. Pat. 1436-41, p. 563; he was Prior of
St. Bees. *" Ibid. 203.

Ibid. 207. ® Pat. 4 Edw. IV, pt. i, m. 14.
~ © Ibid. m. 11.

Pat. 2 Ric. III, pt. ili, m. 17, 2.

Reg. Corpus Christi Guild (Surt. Soc.).

% Ibid. m. 14. Probably this name should be read
Senous, as the bishop is usually called Senhouse.

“" Reg. Corpus Christi Guild (Surt. Soc.).

8° Lawton, Relig. Houses, 39.

% Cat. of Seals, B.M. 4385 ; Harl. Chart. 44 D.
20.

7 Ibid. 4390, Ixxv, 36.

II!

A HISTORY OF YORKSHr_E

The seal® of Simon of Warwick, 1258-96,
is a vesica of similar design with the legend—

s’ SYMONIS DI GRA ABBATIS SCE MAR EBORACI

The seal for tithes * in use at the beginning
of the 14th century is a vesica, 1} in. by
IyJsin., with our Lady and the Child, and the
legend—

s’ ABBIS EBOR’ AD DECIAS DEPYTATV.

10. THE PRIORY OF ST. MARTIN,
RICHMOND, CELL OF ST. MARY’S
ABBEY, YORK

The cell of St. Martin, Richmond, has very
little known history. About 1100 Wymar,
steward to Stephen, Earl of Richmond, gave to
God, Blessed Mary of York, and the monks
serving God there, the chapel of St. Martin of
Richmond with other possessions. Whereupon
a cell of nine or ten monks from St. Mary’s
Abbey, York, was established at St. Martin’s *
and afterwards the hermitage or chapel of
St. Thomas of Bordelby or Bordebank was given
by the abbey to St. Martin’s, for the reception
of leprous brethren.’*? Many other grants were
made to the cell.

HOUSES

11. THE PRIORY OF ARDEN

About 1150,' Peter de Hoton founded the
nunnery of 5t. Andrew at Arden, and Roger de
Mowbray, chief lord of the fee, confirmed the
gift, and soon afterwards the nuns received other
grants, all of which were confirmed by King
John on 28 February 1201,’ but in the royal
confirmation Roger de Mowbray and not Peter
de Hoton is named as the founder.? In 1290
Elizabeth domina de Hoton, widow of William
de Carleton, confirmed to Margaret, then prioress,
and the nuns the lands originally granted, and
en 2 February 1405 Geoffrey Bygod, heir of
Peter de Hoton and Elizabeth widow of William

8 Cat. of Seals, B.M. 4391, lxxv, 37.

* Ibid. 4393, Ixxv, 35.

1© Dugdale, Afon. Ang/. i, 601.

101 Burton, Mon. Ebor.272. In neither instance is
there any hint as to the date of the gift of this chapel
by the mother house to the cell, nor how St. Mary’s
Abbey originally obtained possession of it.

*? Dugdale, Mon. Ang?. iii, 602.

18 Tbid. 602, 603.

14 Rec. of Northern Convocation (Surt. Soc.), 32.

105 Subs. R. 63, no. 12.

2 York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 67.

OF BENEDICTINE

The cell was confirn., by Pope Eugenius III
in 1146.1?

The Taxation of 1291 gtes the spiritualities
of the cell as consisting of pensid.s from seventeen
different churches amounting to.{25 145. 8d.,
and the temporalities as £6 os. $1, making a
total of £31 155. 4a. In the acwunt of the
Provincial Council of 1311, which deat with the
case of the Templars, the Abbot of St. Martin’s
as well as the Prior of St. Martin’s is senarately
entered among those summoned. ‘The former
must necessarily be a clerical error. From a
Subsidy Roll of 1380-1 it would seem tha: there
was then only one monk at the cell besid s the
prior. Archbishop Zouch issued a notice of
his intention to visit the Prior and convent of
St. Martin’s on Saturday, 1 October 1345,"%
but nothing is recorded as to the visitation. In
the Valor Ecclesiasticus*’ the temporalities are
reckoned at {19 7s. 5d. and the spiritualities at
£26 125. 4d., making a total of £47 16s. (sic).

Priors oF Str. Marrin’s

John Popilton 1 (first prior)

Herbert (? c. 1200) 1°

John,™ occurs 1258

Roger,!” occurs 1300

William,’ (? temp. Henry VII)

John Matthew, occurs 1528,"4 as John Mather
153515

NUNS

de Carleton, again confirmed the gift of his
ancestors, delivered the evidence of the gift to
Alice, the prioress, and was accepted as a
founder, to be prayed for by the convent.

Soon after the foundation of the house,‘ a
dispute arose between the nuns of Arden and
the monks of Byland, and in 1189 a compact
was entered into between the two houses in the
presence of Jeremy, Archdeacon of Cleveland,

7 Op. cit. v, 114.

In Mon. Angi. (iii, 610), rentals and lordships in
Cumberland and Westmorland of considerable value
are by mistake assigned to the cell of St. Martin.
The m’stake has been followed by Lawton, Relig.
Houses of Yorks. 40.

® Leland, Coll. i, 25.

™ Egerton MS. 2827, fol. 289.

™ Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 174.

™ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iti, 605.

™ B, Willis, Mitred Abbeys, ii, 282.

"8 Valor Eccl. v, 10d.

‘Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 284.
Add. Chart. 20544.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 286.

* Roger de Mowbray, as founder, had his obit
observed yearly at the time of the Valor Eccl. (v, 86).

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 285.

"7 Thid.

See also B.M.

I12

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

in Hawhby Church, The monks condoned
the nuns in regard to all dams, inclosures for
animals, the rough words of their men, and
other irregularities ; while Muriel, the prioress,
and the nuns conceded to Byland free transit
and passage for the abbot and convent’s carriages
over the lands of the nuns; and both parties
agreed never more to urge any cause against the
other in court, but to amend any wrongs which
the one might do to the other in a friendly
manner between themselves.°

Nothing further is heard of Arden till October
1302,® when Archbishop Corbridge committed
the care of the temporalities of the house to
brother Robert de Colville, canon of Newburgh.
In 13047 Juliana, the prioress, wrote to the
dean and chapter (sede vacante), asking to be
relieved of her office as she had been stricken by
paralysis, and was incapable of ruling the house.
Accordingly the dean and chapter issued a man-
date on 21 November 1304 to the Archdeacon
of Cleveland to install the new prioress.®

In 1306,° Archbishop Greenfield, in conse-
quence of a visitation of Arden, wrote to the
prioress and convent that for the good of their
house and other causes he had absolved Brother
Robert de Dent, conversus of Arden, from his
vow and profession of obedience, and that Dent
had made oath on ‘the archbishop’s pectoral cross
that he would urge no claim against the house of
Arden. The archbishop was sending him to
Furness, and had written to the abbot to receive
him, and as Dent had done much for the nuns
of Arden, he charged them 40s. for some new
clothes for him, and half a mark for his expenses
to Furness. The archbishop also dealt with the
case of Joan de Punchardon,” one of the nuns,
who had become a mother. She was recalled by
the archbishop to Arden, and was there to under-
go salutary penance till she manifested signs of
contrition. The nuns were for the future to
have as confessors two brothers of the order of
Friars Minor, approved by the archbishop for
hearing confessions and imposing penances.
There were not to be more than two, and their
names were to be submitted to the archbishop
speedily. The nuns were to provide a master
or guardian of their goods, and specially one to
look after their husbandry.

This letter was followed by a decretum,}
in which orders were made for the general
regulation of the nunnery. The rule of St.
Benedict was to be observed in all its articles.
Those convicted of faults were humbly to sub-
mit to correction, When the prioress kept her

5 The monks of Byland first settled at Hood Grange
near Arden, and retained till the Dissolution a large
portion of the lands at Hood.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 264.

7 Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 43. § Ibid. fol. 44.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, i, fol. 862.

10 Thid. " Thid.

chamber she was to have a nun with her, not
always the same, but now one, then another, so
that no sinister suspicion of levity could arise.
The infirmary was to be properly managed.
No one was to be received as nun by compact,
as that involved the guilt of simony, but a nun
was only to be received from the promptings of
love. No girls or boarders were to be taken,
nor any nuns or sisters, nor was any man to be
received as a conversus without the special licence
of the archbishop or his successors. Within
eight days from the receipt of the decretum, all
secular girls staying in the house without
authority were to be removed, as well as every
useless servant who was a burden to the house:
also all dogs and puppies, so that the straitened
revenues of the house might be devoted to the
poor. None of the nuns’ wood was to be sold,
more particularly large trees, without licence,
and no corrodies were to be granted. ‘The
officers of the house were to render proper
accounts, twice, or at least once a year, and all
the buildings, especially the church, refectory,
and chapter-house, which needed repair, were to
be attended to.

On 28 August, 1311, Archbishop Greenfield
wrote to the prioress and convent that Clarice
de Speton, one of their nuns, who had been
guilty of incest with Geoffrey de Eston, bailiff
of Bulmershire, had appeared before him in a
contrite mind, that he had granted her absolution,
and he enjoined the nuns to receive her kindly,
and impose on her the proper penance.

In January 13147? Archbishop Greenfield
confirmed the election of Beatrice de Cotton as
prioress, and directed that an inventory of all
the goods of the house should be made. On
13 November 1320 * Archbishop Melton issued
a proclamation that Margaret de Punchardon,
nun of Arden, had asked that she might be
inclosed in a proper and worthy place, so that
she might serve God more strictly by leading the
solitary life. The archbishop had made inquiry
as to her past life, and found her worthy, and in
May following ' he ordered her inclusion in the
house of St. Nicholas, Beverley, ob frugem melioris
vite in company with Agnes Migregose, already
a recluse there.

In January 1323-4'* Archbishop Melton
appointed Thomas Fox, rector of Gilling, and
John de Speton custodians of the affairs of the
nuns; and in February 1328-9" he issued a
commission touching the election of a prioress in
place of Isabella « Couvel’ (Colville) who had
resigned. A short time afterwards 18 Beatrice de
Holm, nun professed of the house, was elected

4 bid. fol. 100,
8 Ibid. ii, fol. 1044, 108.
4 Tbid. Melton, fol. 2344.
% Ibid. fol. 2824.
6 Ibid. fol. 2434.

Ibid. fol. 251. ® Tbid.

3 113 15

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

prioress, but owing to irregularities in the process
of election the archbishop quashed it, and then
directed the rector of Hawkley to install Beatrice
de Holm as prioress of Arden. She cannot have
proved satisfactory, for in 1331 * the archbishop
directed commissioners to visit Arden, and, if
necessary, depose the prioress, and arrange for
the election of a successor. What was done is
unfortunately not recorded. On 28 June” in the
same year the Prior of Newburgh and the vicar
of Feliskirk made return for the king’s exchequer
as to the taxing of Arden, that the nuns possessed
no ecclesiastical benefice, and that their whole lay
property scarcely exceeded by 20s. a year ‘ miseram
sustentacionem earundem, and that there was
nothing else to be taxed.

In November 1334,” and again in 1350,”
commissions were issued to hold visitations of the
nunnery, but as nothing is said as to the result
of these visitations perhaps it may be charitably
assumed that there was nothing seriously amiss.

On 16 July 1372” Archbishop Thoresby
directed the prioress and convent to re-admit one
of their nuns, Margaret Colville. who had
apostatized and been guilty of incontinence with
Robert Wetherhird, a layman.

On 6 October 1392 ** Archbishop Arundel
appointed commissioners to receive the resignation
of the prioress, and confirm the election of her
successor, Eleanor,*® against whom very serious
complaint was made a little more than three
years later.

On 24 February 13967 Mr. John de South-
well, commissary of the dean and chapter sede
vacante, helda visitation of Arden. Eleanor, the
prioress, stated that she was elected when twenty-
six years old. She admitted that during the
whole time she had held office she had never
consulted her sisters as to the affairs of the house,
that whenever she had the common seal in her
private keeping, even when away from the
priory, she had used it for entering into obliga-
tions on the part of the house. She further
admitted that silence was not observed, and that
talking went on even in the quire during service.
On the other hand she complained that the
sacrista, when monished by her, still neglected
her duty, and that the bells were not rung as

® York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 254.

® Thid. fol. 253. * Thid. fol. 1994.

= Ibid. Zouch, fol. 1684.

*3 Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 192.

*“ Tbid. Arundel, fol. 434.

* An account for her three years of office was
produced at the inquiry, which makes it clear that
she had been elected in 1392, though her name is not
given at that date.

78 York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. The commission
to visit is on fol. 206. The account of the visitation
(a very rare entry in the York Registers) is on fol.
208, &c. The latter is printed (not quite accurately),
Test. Etor. i, 283 n. &c.

they should be, in consequence of which the
services were not held at the proper time.

Christiana Darell, a nun, stated that the
prioress sent three young nuns out to make hay
early in the morning, that they did not return
before dark, and so divine service nondum est
dictum. She further alleged that the prioress
received all the revenues of the house, and spent
them as she liked, without the knowledge of her
sisters, and that sometimes she had the common
seal in her private keeping, and sometimes gave
it to Elizabeth Darell, so that she could use it at
pleasure. Moreover, a covered piece of silver,
and a maser, worth at least 405., had been
pawned and were lost, and the official seal of the
prioress was in pawn with another maser. She
complained that their corrody, or allowance of
ale, was badly and irregularly delivered, and that
owing to the prioress’s neglect in buying corn,
she had had to pay 11d. a bushel for wheat,
when it might have been had for gd., 8d., or 7d.

Elizabeth Darell, another nun, said that for a
whole year the prioress had the common seal in
her private keeping. She stated that when the
prioress took office, the house was in a sound
financial condition and that they only owed 15
marks, and that the prioress had received many
sums of money, by gift and in alms.

Elizabeth Steyne, Alice Barnard, Agnes de
Midelton and Elizabeth de Thornton, nuns, said
that the seal of the prioress and a maser were
together in pledge for 5s. ; that the prioress incited
the secular boys and laymen to chatter in the
cloister and church; also that there were no
candles at the altar, nor had they light to say
matins and other canonical hours, and the paschal
candle had been deficient all the time the prioress
had held office. They said they did not get
their corrodies when due. Sometimes the delay
was for a fortnight, and at others for a month, so
that they had to drink water. They added a
much graver charge, that the prioress slept in her
chief chamber outside the dormitory, without
a reasonable cause, during the greater part of the
summer, and that she was defamed with a cer-
tain John Bever, a married man, that they had
slept together in a house at night, and that on
one occasion they lay alone together within the
priory, in the prioress’s chamber. ‘They stated
further that when the prioress took office the
house only owed 15 marks, but that at the time
of the visitation it was heavily in debt, although
the prioress had received several sums of money,
as from John Aslakby 9 marks, from Dan Henry,
the nuns’ chaplain, 4 marks, from William de
Thornton 7 marks, from Robert Howm 4 marks,
from the Lady de Roose 205., from Henry Erden
2 marks, and from Robert Barbour 20s. The
prioress had also received money for a wood she
sold, and concealed the sale from them. She
had moreover sold and destroyed many planta-
tions, without their consent, and disposed of the

114

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

proceeds as she liked. Further, the roofs and
walls of the buildings were dilapidated. A list
of the debts follows, and the nuns proceeded to
say unanimi voce that when the prioress was
elected there were ten pairs of sheets of good
linen, but they were destroyed and the prioress
had had no new sheets made during her time.
They had only two albs, one of these was turned
to secular use for sifting flour and was often
found on the beds of the lay folk in the
stable. ‘They also complained that the prioress
sold four large trees since the last visitation,
without consulting the nuns. The prioress had
received from the executors of Henry Erden
2 marks to pray for his soul, and she concealed
this from her sisters. A new vestment was
pawned by the prioress, in consequence of
which it had been soiled and was worthless and
had not been hallowed. A financial statement
is added, showing the receipts and expenditure
for the first three years of the prioress’s term of
office, viz. : in the first year, receipts £22 75. 64.,
expenditure £27 6s. 8d. Second year, receipts
£25 35 expenditure £40. Third year, receipts
£26 gs. 6d., expenditure £27 3.

The action which was taken as a result of
these revelations is not recorded, but it is reason-
able to presume that it must have resulted in the
deposition of the prioress.

In 1444 Archbishop Kemp” granted an
indulgence for two years to all who should assist
towards the repairs of the house of Arden, and
on 5 May 1459*8 Archbishop William Booth
wrote from London to the nuns, saying that he
had heard that the office of prioress was vacant
by the death of the late prioress, and he directed
them to proceed without delay to the election of
her successor. Owing to the distance and the
inaccessible position of Arden he had deputed
the official of Cleveland to act in his stead.
There is again a long break, and it is only at
the time of the Dissolution that we obtain any
more information as to Arden.”

The commissioners supervised the priory on
8 May 1536, and it was suppressed on
25 August following»? There were then six
sisters : three received pensions of 20s. each, two
Ios. each, and one 6s. 8d. The sum of 4os.

7’ York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. go.

** Ibid. W. Booth, fol. 65.

® On 1 Oct. 1527 Sir Ninian Markenfield, or
Markingfield, kt., in his will says: ‘I yeve to the
Priores of Arden and the Covente of the same, where
Iam founder, to pray for my sall and all Cristen
salles x°’ (Test. Ebor. v, 233). From the will of
John Storer (4 Aug. 1506) we learn that there were
then a prioress and seven sisters at Arden (York. Reg.
of Wilk, vi, 1656). On 3 Mar. 1490 William
Bonester, chaplain of the monastery of Arden,
bequeathed his body to be buried in the church of
the monastery of St. Andrew of Arden (York. Reg. of
Wills, v, 444).

was granted to one of the sisters, Elizabeth John-
son, who was deaf and over eighty years of age,
towards her sustenance. Fourteen servants and
two boys were in the service of the nuns, All
the plate which the house then possessed was a
gilt chalice, weighing 144 oz., and a flat piece
of white silver, weighing 8 oz., and there were
two bells in the ‘campanile,’ valued together at
tos. In 1291 the priory of ‘Erdern’ was
rated at £10.° The clear value of the house
according to the Valor of 1535 was only
£12 os. 64.3% The nuns also had an image
of St. Brigit, to which women made offerings for
cows that had strayed, or which were ill.”

A corrody had been granted in 1524 to Alice
widow of William Berre of ‘Sonlow Coytt’ fora
payment of £12. She was to have ‘mett and
drynke as their convent hath’ at their common
table, or, when sick, in her own room, also ‘on
honest chambr with sufficient fyer att all tyme,
with all such sufficient apperell as shalbe nedful.’
Alice Berre (or Birrey as she is there called)
was living in 1536, when she received 685. 4d.
as part payment for the commutation of her
corrody.*? Another corrody was granted to the
nuns’ chaplain.24 ‘For the gud and diligent
seruice y* oure wellbe loued sir thomas parkyn-
son, preste, hav done to vs in tyme paste,” they
granted him for his natural life a corrody, or
annual rent, viz.: that he shall have ‘by yere,
and yeres, meitt and drinke at the table of the
forsaid prioress’ and annual wages of 40s.
‘with one leueray gown of the walew or price
of’ 135. 4d. ‘ Also, we assygne unto the said sir
thomas, one chambre, next unto the frater, with
vij laides of Wode, and we grante to y® said sir
thomas parkynson, to have every weke vnto his
chambre three louffes of wheit brede, and ij
gallons of the beste aile. And forther, we grante
vnto hyme, yerly, the gressing of one horse in
summer tyme, and hay, prouender, letter, and
stable rowme, in wynter tyme, lykwyse as the
Prioress, or cowent horse, for the tyme, with
shone and naleses to the said horse.” The deed
is dated 18 May 1529. In 2 and 3 Philip and
Mary *® Thomas Parkynsonne was receiving
annually 56s, 8d. in commutation of this
corrody,

PRIORESSES OF ARDEN

Muriel,** occurs 1189
Agatha,®” occurs 1242

50 Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 3055.

8° Op. cit. (Rec. Com.), v, 86.

| L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, 137, &c.

* Conventual Leases (P.R.O.), Yorks. no. 5.

8 Aug. Off. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

** Conventual Leases (P.R.O.), Yorks, no.-4.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 285 n.

* Tbid. no. ii: occurs as ‘M.’ in 1187: Egerton
MS, 2823, fol. 31d.

* Dugdale, op. cit. iv, 286, no. iv.

trs

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Alice, occurs 1273

Margaret,*® occurs 1289

Juliana,® resigned 1304

Beatrice de Cotton,® elected 1314

Isabella Colville, elected 1324

Beatrice de Holm,” elected 1329

Eleanor, occurs 1396 *

Alice,# occurs 1405

Elizabeth,* occurs 1436

Margaret,* or Marjorie Danby, confirmed
17 February 1502

12. THE PRIORY OF ST. STEPHEN,
FOUKEHOLM

It is not known when, or by whom, this small
and poorly-endowed nunnery near Northallerton
was founded. Itis first mentioned inan undated
Plea Roll of the time of King John,! when
Maud, widow of William, brought an action
against Robert de Alverton and the prioress of
St. Stephen’s, about her dower in a toft of land
at Thirsk. It is again mentioned about 1240,
when Acilla, prioress of St. Stephen’s, and her
convent vested all the temporal property of the
house in William de Colville, the patron, and
his heirs, so that when Acilla died a prioress
might be elected in her place with consent and
good will of William de Colville or his heirs ;
also that no one should be appointed magister or
custos of the house, except by William de Col-
ville and his heirs, Neither should the prioress
and nuns receive any nun, or sister, or any
secular man, or woman, or boys in their house,
without such consent. ‘The prioress and convent
also conceded for themselves and their successors
that all contentions moved between Philip de
Colville their patron, father of William de Col-
ville also their patron, on the one side, and them-
selves on the other, should be completely ended.

In 1292-3? one of the Yorkshire Assize Rolls
has an entry respecting it. It is there called the
nunnery of St. Stephen of Foukeholm, in Bird-
forth. The house was, however, in the township
of Thimbleby and parish of Osmotherley. The
probable explanation is that Foukeholm, though
in Thimbleby, was so close to the boundaries of
the wapentake of Birdforth that it was misde-
scribed, by error, as being within the latter. The
entry records that William, chaplain of Yarm,

Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv. 285, no. i.

° York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 434.

“" Ibid. Greenfield, ii, fol. 104d.

” Dugdale, Mon. Ang. iv, 284.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 251.

“ Add. Chart. 20544.

* Baildon, Mfon. Notes, i, 2.

) Dorks. Arch. Fourn. ix, 334, from which almost the
whole of the information here given has been derived.

? Dorks. Arch. Fourn. ix, 334.

was indicted before the justices itinerant at York
for the abduction of Cecilia, a nun of St. Stephen
of Foukeholm, The nun returned of her own
accord to St. Stephen’s. At the same time,
John le prior of ‘Osmunderlay ’ (Osmotherley,)
and William the son of Aldus’, were indicted
for breaking into a house belonging to the prioress.

In 1312% Richard de Kellaw, Bishop of Dur-
ham, commissioned the warden of the spirituality
of Allerton and the master of the hospital of
Lazenby to act as judges in a case between the
prioress and nuns of St. Stephen’s and the preben-
daries or portioners of Osmotherley as to the chapel
of St. Stephen, and the obventions of the same.
The nuns of St. Stephen’s, of the Benedictine
order, are mentioned in a papal mandate,
23 May 1330,‘ of John XXII.

In 1349 Alice Gower® was confirmed as
prioress, and at the same time Elena de Angrom,
a nun professed of the house, who had apostatized,
appeared and was ordered to resume her habit of
religion in the house, a penance being imposed
for her apostasy. Agnes de Not’, a sister of the
house, was also on the same occasion summoned
to appear and recognized the new prioress.

This is the last time St. Stephen’s nunnery is
mentioned. It seems not improbable that the
ancestors of the Colvilles had founded it. The
Colvilles were also benefactors to St. James’s
Hospital, Northallerton, which when the Valor
Ecclesiasticus was compiled held some of the
former property of the priory, viz. the cow-
pastures of the Nunhouse.’ A farm still bearing
this latter name perpetuates the memory of the
almost forgotten nunnery, which is not mentioned
by Burton, Dugdale, or Tanner, and had well-
nigh passed out of mind till Mr. W. Brown drew
attention to it.

Only a fragment of a sealis known. It is the
upper part of the seal. It bears a figure standing,
apparently female, with a crown, and bearing a
sceptre in the left hand.®

PRIORESSES OF FOUKEHOLM

Acilla, occurs c. 1240 7°
Alice Gower, confirmed 1349"

* Reg. Palat. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), i, 187.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, ii, 320.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 168.

® The deed by Acilla the prioress suggests this.

” Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 85.

® Yorks. Arch. Fourn.ix,334-7- Mr. Brown found
the deed by the Prioress Acilla among his family docu-
ments at Arncliffe Hall. Hecalls the nunnery that of
St. Stephen of Thimbleby. It is usually called St. Ste-
phen’s only, but in one case cited in the text it is
called the priory of St. Stephen’s of Foukeholm, and
in 1252 it occurs in a list of Yorkshire nunneries to
which the king gave silver chalices as ‘ Fuckeholme’ :
Lib. R. (Chan.) 36 Hen. III, m. 19.

° Yorks. Arch. Fourn. ix, 335.

Ibid. ; Cott. MS. Nero D. iii, fol. 62.

" York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 168.

116

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

13. THE PRIORY OF MARRICK

The priory of Marrick was founded at the
beginning of the reign of Henry II by Roger de
Aske.’ The foundation charter is addressed to
Archbishop Roger, who was consecrated in 1154,
but as the archbishop’s charter of confirmation
says that the founder made the grant with con-
sent of Conan, Earl of Richmond, the foundation
cannot have been earlier than 1165, when Conan
became seised of the earldom of Richmond.

The founder granted the church of St. Andrew?
of Marrick, with a carucate of land there. Earl
Conan* confirmed the gifts of Roger de Aske,
and those of other of his barons (arenes mei).

Roger de Aske,® son of Conan, and grandson
of the founder, confirmed the grants of his grand-
father and father, and added other lands. Besides
other lands in Marrick, the convent received many
donations in most of the adjoining villages and
also the hospital known as the Spital on Stainmoor,
which was given by Ralph son of Ralph, lord of
Moulton, and which continued in the possession
of the convent till the Dissolution, the nuns
paying a chaplain there £4 135. 4d. according to
the foundation of Conan, Earl of Richmond. An
alphabetical list of these is given by Burton,® and
the charters relating to them and other gifts have
since been printed in full.”

The priory was in the archdeaconry of Rich-
mond, the records of which are mostly defective.
A visitation was held in 1252, during the archi-
episcopate of Walter Gray, but whether by the
archbishop or by the archdeacon is not evident.
Both the archbishop and the Archdeacon of
Richmond appear to have held episcopal visita-
tions of the monasteries in Richmondshire.?

The ‘ inquisition ’ was held on Tuesday before
the feast of St. Denys 1252, and ‘articles’ were
sent for the observance of the nuns, most of
which are of the usual general nature.? The
prioress was to be affable to her nuns, treat
them kindly, correct their excesses privately
in chapter, and inflict for equal faults the

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 244.

? Misc. Topog. et Gen. (1838), v, 100.

5 Several deeds speak of the church of St. Mary and
St. Andrew, and some of St. Mary alone. It is pos-
sible that the uncertain double dedication may have
arisen from the nuns’ church and the parish church
being under the same roof. The same uncertainty
of dedication occurs in the case of Nunkeeling.

* Coll. Topog. et Gen. v, 102. ‘Ibid. 103.

§ Burton, Mon. Edor. 269-71.

7 Coll. Topog. et Gen. (1838), v, LO1-24, 221-38,
where will also be found a facsimile of a most in-
teresting ground plan of the monastic church and
buildings taken at the time of the Dissolution.

8 A visitation of Nun Monkton in 1397 by ‘Thomas
Dalby, Archdeacon of Richmond, is recorded in Dug-
dale, Mon. Angi. iv, 194.

° The late Mr. T. M. Fallow omitted the reference
to this visitation, and search has failed to discover it.

same punishments, lest those whom she most
loved she might spare most and oppress others.
She was to give leave to none to go out
unless the sickness of friends or some other
worthy reason demanded it, and then only in
company with a prudent and mature nun, and
a time for return was to be fixed under a severe
penalty. The nuns were not to sit with guests
or anyone outside the cloister after curfew (u/tra
coverfu), nor for long, unless the guests arrived so
late that it was impossible to serve them sooner,
nor was a nun to remain alone with a guest after
others had left. The guests were not to stay
more than one night, as the means of the house
barely sufficed for the maintenance of the nuns,
sisters, and brethren.

No woman or man was to be admitted except
with the bishop’s licence. If any woman or
man were admitted, that person would be expelled
from the house, without hope of mercy, and the
prioress would be deposed, and any other nuns
who agreed would be condemned to fast on bread
and water for two months, Sundays and festivals
excepted. No girls or women were in future to
be taken as boarders or to be taught without
special licence, but as many secular women might
be employed as were required for such work
as it was not decorous for the nuns or sisters
to do.

No corrody whatever was to be sold in future
without consent. “The whole number of oxen,
cows, horses, and stock of every kind was to be
entered in two rolls, one of which was to remain
with the convent, and the other with the custos
of the house, who had been appointed to look
after the outside business and guardianship of the
granges, so that the property of the house might
be apparent at any visitation.

No letters were to be sealed with the common
seal, except by consent of the whole convent, or
at least of the wiser part, and of the master.
Sales of wool and of stock were forbidden, except
with consent of the master.

Nothing further is known of the history of
Marrick till the period of the Dissolution, For
some unknown reason, by Letters Patent, dated
9 September 1536,” it was exempted from dis-
solution with the other lesser monasteries, but
on 17 November 1540 it was surrendered by
Christabella Cowper and sixteen nuns. The clear
annual value in the Valor LEcclesiasticus4§ was
£48 18%. 2d.,and among the reprises are certain
alms distributed, viz. to the poor on Maundy
Thursday, 16s. 84., and on the same day given
to the poor at the gates of the monastery, in

1 Coll. Topog. et Gen. v, 238.

" Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 237. The return is
signed by Richard Baldwyn ‘ magister ibidem ’ which,
taken in connexion with the allusions to and impor-
tant position of the master in the articles of 1252,
points to the conclusion that the master was a perma-
nent officer at Marrick.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

accordance with the charters of the church of
Downholme and of Thomas Horneby and others,
£4 1s. td.; similar alms yearly given to weak
and sick persons coming to the priory building,
according to the charter of Adam de Kyrkby,
12s.; also 115. 64d. a year to poor folk at the
obit of Roger de Aske the founder; 38s. 4d. at
the obit of Hugh Magnaby and Geoffrey de For-
cett, benefactors ; and 10s, at the obit of Thomas
Richardson—the whole amounting to {9 45.84d.,
a large sum for so small a monastery. The
prioress received a pension of 100s. and the
other nuns pensions varying in amount from
66s. 8d. to 205.

Prioresses }? oF MARRICK

Agnes, c. 1200

Alina, c. 1280}

Isabella Surrais, occurs 1250, 1257, 1263

Margaret, occurs 1282

Alice de Helperby, occurs 1293

Juliana, occurs 1298

Margaret, occurs 1321, 1327 1%

Elizabeth de Berden, occurs 1326, 1333

Elizabeth, 1351 1°

Maud de Melsonby, occurs 1376

Elizabeth, occurs 1391

Agnes, occurs 1400, 1406,” 1413

Alice de Ravenswathe, occurs 1433, 1449

Cecilia Metcalf, occurs 1464, 1498, died
1502

Agnes Wenslawe, occurs 1502, died 1510

Isabella Berningham, occurs 1511, died 1511

Christabella Cowper, occurs 1530

14. THE PRIORY OF NUNBURN-
HOLME}?

Dugdale? states that the priory of Nunburn-
holme (or Brunnum) was founded by the an-
cestors of Roger de Merlay, lord of the barony
of Morpeth, whose daughter and co-heir married
in 1265-6 William, Baron of Greystoke. This
is corroborated * by Drs, Layton and Legh in

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 246.

* From the list in Mise. Tcpcg. et Gen. v, 239, where
in each case the proofs are given.

“ Coll. Topog. et Gen. v, 253 ; Cott. MS. Nero D. iii,
fol. 22.

* Anct. D. (P.R.O.), B. 3682.

8 Plac. de Banco, Hil. 7 Edw. III, m. 24d;

* Assize R. 1129, m. 17 (probably the same as
E. de Berden).

¥ Baildon’s MS. notes.

’ There is a very strange mistake in Dugdale (Mon.
Angi. iv, 279, no. 3 and p. 278), where this little
Benedictine nunnery is confused with the house of
Augustinian nuns at Burnham in Buckinghamshire.

* Dugdale, Mon. Ang. iv, 278, 279, no. i, ii.

* Ibid. iv, 278,

their comperta, that ‘Lord Dakers’ was |
founder, and agrees with Burton,‘ who say's t!
the priory was founded in the reign of Henry

Very little is known as to the possessions
the priory, or from whom they were receive
According to the later evidence of the /“a
Ecclesiasticus® the possessions comprised mer:
the site of the monastery and demesne lands, a
small property in nine or ten places in 1
neighbourhood. The external history of 1
house is practically a blank, and not much
known of its internal affairs. The outstandi
incident of interest is the claim which its prior
made, and which she substantiated, that t
monastery of Seton in Coupland was a cell of t
house of Nunburnholme.’ How this relations!
came about has not been explained.

The Registers at York have very few entr
about Nunburnholme. The first allusion is t
record of a donation of 20s. from Archbish
Giffard as alms to the nuns in 1270.8 /
inquiry by Archbishop Wickwane was address
on 19 March 1279-80° to the Prior of Wart
as to Avice de Beverley, who, having left t
house, desired to return. The prioress ai
convent said that Avice de Beverley, formerly
nun professed of their house, had thrice left
of her own will to lead a more ascetic life els
where ; further that fourteen years at least h
elapsed since she last left them, but they believ
she had lived a chaste life, though when wi
them she was constantly disobedient, and s
had been thirty years a nun of their house befc
she left it. Avice de Beverley ‘nun of Killin;
[Nunkeeling] was elected as Prioress of Nu
burnholme on the death of Joan de Holm,
that if this was the same person, she had a
parently not returned to Nunburnholme.
1310" the archbishop directed the rector
Londesborough to confirm the election of a ne
prioress, the office being vacant by the death
Avice de Beverley. If the statement of t
prioress and convent in 1279-80 is correct, th
she had been absent for fourteen years, and h.
previously been a nun for thirty years, Avice |
Beverley cannot have been much less th:
ninety years of age at her death, and over eigh
when, as a nun of Nunkeeling, she was elect
prioress of the house in which she had be
originally professed, but probably they overstat
the facts. On 14 June 1313}? Archbish
Greenfield granted the Prioress of Nunburnholr

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 57.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 279, no. i.

° Op. cit. v, 129. In the Ministers’ Accounts (Du
dale, Mon. Angl. iv, 280) are fuller details of t
former property of the dissolved priory.

” See below.

° Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 123.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 1183.

* Ibid. Greenfield, i, fol. 103.

” Tbid. fol. 122. ” Ibid. ii, fol. 118

118

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

licence to visit ‘cellam vestram de Seton in
Coupland vestro monasterio subjectam,’ taking
with her two honest nuns of her house, in order
to visit the nuns of Seton ‘tam in capite quam
in membris, prout ad vos pertinet visitare.’
Having visited Seton she was to return absque
mare dispendio to Nunburnholme.

No indication has been found elsewhere that
Seton was a cell to Nunburnholme, and this
discovery is of considerable interest. It is re-
markable that a small and obscure nunnery like
Nunburnholme should have possessed a cell, but
something very similar was in contemplation in
regard to a cell at Coddenham in Suffolk which
was to belong to Nun Appleton.”

In 1314 Archbishop Greenfield committed
the care of the house to William, rector of
Londesborough. He was to go there three or
four times a year and hear the accounts of the
ministers and prepositi of the house read over,
as the archbishop had found that the nuns had
no expert person who could look after the
business of their poorly-endowed house.

Archbishop Melton held a visitation of Nun-
burnholme in 1318” by commission, and as a
result directed that divine service was to be duly
performed according to the season. No pensions
were to be granted, no persons of either sex
over twelve years of age were to be maintained
as boarders, nor was anyone to be received to
the habit of nun, sister, or comversus, without
special licence of the archbishop. ‘The prioress
was to take her meals in the refectory with the
other nuns, and sleep with them in the dormitory,
unless ill or engaged in business or entertaining
notable guests. Scandal having arisen from the
frequent access and gossiping of secular persons,
both men and women, with certain of the nuns,
the prioress and sub-prioress were ordered not to
allow such access to the nuns. ‘The prioress
and other nuns were stringently ordered not to
use mantles, tunics or other garments, over long
or adorned in a manner which did not accord
with religion. ‘The secrets of the chapter were
not to be revealed.!®

Nothing more is known of the history of the
house till the era of the suppression. In 1521”
there were only five nuns besides the prioress.
On 22 May 1536 the house was ‘ supervised,’
and was suppressed on 11 August following.’®

13 See as to this in the account of Nun Appleton.

™ York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 120.

®In 1534 Archbishop Lee held a visitation of
Nunburnholme, and sent injunctions to the prioress
and nuns, similar to those sent to Sinningthwaite on
14 Oct. 15343 Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xvi, 446.

Test. Ebor. v, 135. The will of John Tong,
‘bailie of Burneholme.’? Agnes Robynson, Margaret
Craike, Cecilie Thomlynson, Margaret Somerby,
and Elene Harper, were the five nuns.

8 Aug. Off. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

There were at that time also five nuns besides
the prioress,!” and they had in their employment
twelve servants ‘and diverse poor people working
there.’ There were two small bells in the
‘campanile,’ valued together at 10s., also a chalice
and a salt with a cover, all parcel gilt, weighing
19 oz., and under ‘superstition’? Drs. Layton
and Legh ™ reported that the nuns had a piece
of the Holy Cross.

According tothe Valor Ecclesiasticus ** the gross
annual value of the house was £10 35. 3d., and
its clear annual value £8 15. rod. This was
an improvement on a return made in 1525”
when the clear annual value was only £4 65. 84.
It was the smallest and poorest house in the
county which survived till the Dissolution.

PriorEssEs OF NUNBURNHOLME

Milisant, occurs 1206 *8

Avice, occurs 1282 *4

Joan de Holm, died 1306”

Avice de Beverley, succeeded 1306,”° died
c. 131077

Idonea de Pokelyngton, resigned 1316 8

Elizabeth Babthorp, died 1456 ”

Joan Darell, died 1485-6 *

Agnes Wellows, elected 1485-6

Elizabeth Thweng, confirmed 1523,” resigned

1534"
Elizabeth Kylburne, succeeded 1534 **

15. THE PRIORY OF NUNKEELING
This nunnery was founded in 1152 by
Agnes de Arches, also called Agnes de Catfoss,!

In an account of money paid, the prioress was
given 26s. 8¢., three nuns 335. 4¢. each, ‘another’
235. 4¢., and ‘another’ 20s. In each case the word
‘another’ has been erased and ‘alii’ (sic) substituted
for it, which makes the exact number indicated
perhaps uncertain ; Aug. Off. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, 137, &c.

71 Op. cit. v, 129.

” §.P. Dom. 28 Feb. 1526 (return made by Brian
Higdon).

3 Yorks. Fines, Fohkn (Surt. Soc.), tot.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 278.

*° York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, i, fol. 103.

6 Thid.

’ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 278.

*8 Ibid.

* York Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 108; (her
successor’s name is not given).

* Ibid. Rotherham, i, fol. 45.

3 Ibid.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 278.

8 York Archiepis. Reg. Lee, fol. 264.
prioress is called ‘Isabella Twyng.’)

54 Ibid.

' Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 185. The chartulary
of this house, Cott. MS. Otho C. viii, was practically
destroyed by fire in 1731.

(The late

IIg

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

in honour of St. Mary Magdalene? and St. Helen
for the health of the soul of her husband,
Herbert St. Quintin, and for the souls of Walter
and Robert, her sons, and those of her parents
and friends.?

Agnes, the prioress, and the convent of
Keeling in June 1299 covenanted to celebrate
every year the obit of Master William de
Haxby, canon of Beverley. They also under-
took to malt 3 bushels of good wheat yearly
against the anniversary, so that each nun on
that day might have a gallon of ale well worth
a penny, and pittance of the same value.‘

In 1281-2° Archbishop Wickwane wrote to
the convent of Nunkeeling forbidding them to
receive anyone as nun or sister, or to admit
anybody to live in the nunnery without his
special licence, and in 12948 his successor,
Archbishop Romanus, appealed to the Bishops of
Winchester and Lincoln, collectors of the tenth,
on behalf of the nuns of ‘ Killing,’ whose poverty
was so great that the means of their house
scarce sufficed for their food and raiment. On
15 July 13107 Archbishop Greenfield wrote
to the prioress and convent that in consequence
of what had been revealed to his commissaries
they were within three days of the receipt of
his letter to remove Isabella de St. Quintin from
the office of cellarer in the presence of the whole
convent. She was not to be appointed to any
other office, and was to keep convent, quire, &c.,
and not go outside the house. Two secular
women in the house, Beatrice and Nella Scot,
were to be removed.

In 13148 the same archbishop held a visitation
of the priory, and issued a decretum. No nun
was to be absent from divine service on account
of her being occupied with silk work (prepter
occupacionem operis de serico). The keys of the
cloister were to be in custody of the sub-prioress
and another worthy nun, and the sub-prioress
and her colleague were to be studiously careful
in the matter of locking the doors. The prior-
ess and sub-prioress were to inquire diligently,
and see who the persons were by whom the
alms of the house had been pilfered and dimin-
ished, and if they found that the e/emosinaria
had committed fraud or been negligent, she was
to be removed from office.

No young nun concerning whom sinister
suspicion might arise was to have her meals with
the brothers or other persons, either religious or
secular, in the hall of the Aospitium, or elsewhere
outside the inner cloister, neither was a nun to
tarry for any length of time in those places

? Baildon, Alon, Notes, i, 163, no. 3.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 186.

* Poulson, Hist. and Antig. of Holderness, i, 377.

’ York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 20, 175 d.
§ Ibid. Romanus, fol. 67 d.

7 Ibid. Greenfield, i, fol. 124.

® Ibid. ii, fol. 1234,

with such persons, or converse with them, except
in the presence of a nun of mature age. No
nuns were to make themselves remarkable as
regards their girdles or shoes, or wear anything
unsuitable to religion.

The prioress was not to allow the nuns to go
out except on the business of the house, or to
visit friends and relatinns, and then such a nun
was to have another as companion, and was not
to be away longer than fifteen days. All the
money due to the house was to be received by
two bursars, elected by the convent.

The prioress was to keep convent in quire at
divine service, she was to have her meals in the
refectory and sleep in the dormitory, unless
hindered by entertaining notable guests, or other
lawful causes. In important business she was
to take counsel with her sisters, and all were
forbidden to lease manors, sell corrodies, or
receive to the habit of a nun, a sister, or a
conversus, any person, or to take boarders, or to
retain girls in the house after they were twelve
years old,

On 23 July 1316,° the see of York being
vacant, the commissioners of the dean and
chapter visited the nunnery, and on 11 August
Avice de la More, the prioress, resigned her
office into the hands of the dean in the chapter-
house at York. The new prioress then elected
was Isabella de St. Quintin,!? who a few years
before had been deprived of the office of cellarer
for misconduct and pronounced ineligible for
office in the house. The dean and chapter
quashed the election as canonically defective in
procedure, but appointed her to the vacant
office on 19 August, and on 21 September! the
dean and chapter wrote to the new prioress and
the convent, making provision for Avice de la
More, who for a long period had laudably and
usefully superintended the house. She was to
have a chamber for herself in their monastery,
and a nun of the house assigned her by the
prioress as a companion. She was to receive for
her sustenance bread, ale, cooked food and
victuals daily as two nuns of the same house,
and her nun associate as one nun.

On 27 July 1318’ Avice de la More, on
account of her conspiracies, rebellions, and dis-
obedience to her prioress, had to be warned
to desist, or she would be deprived of the pro-
vision made for her when she ceded the office
of prioress. But besides warning her the arch-
bishop ordered her each Friday to say the seven
penitential psalms with the litany, humbly and
devoutly, and on those days she was to receive
a discipline in chapter, and to fast on bread, ale,
and vegetables, with one service of fish.

Dionisia Dareyns, for her disobedience and
other things, was not to go out of the precincts
except in worthy company. Each Friday she

* Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 954. © Ibid.
" Ibid. fol. 96. * Ibid. Melton, fol. 2694.

120

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

was to receive a discipline until she showed
signs of true contrition. Avice de Lelle was
strictly forbidden to go outside the inner cloister
of the house, in any manner, or to talk to Robert
de Eton, chaplain, or any other secular person
whomsoever. She had confessed incontinence, and
was to undergo the penance appointed by the
rules of the order, and this was not to be miti-
gated until she had shown signs of true contrition
and amendment, concerning which the prioress
and convent were to certify the archbishop.

On Thursday before the translation of St.
Thomas the Martyr in the same year, the
archbishop again visited the house and a month
later (30 January) sent a series of injunctions
very similar to those of 1314. As regards taking
boarders, the archbishop granted the prioress and
convent licence, on 21 May 1319,'* to take
Margaret de Tweng to board in the house, at
her own charges.

Dissensions appear to have arisen again in the
following year, and the archbishop issued a
commission on 3 December 1319,"* inquiring as
to the rebellious nuns of the house of Keeling,
clamorous information having reached his ears
that certain of the nuns had laid aside the
obedience and devotion to which they were
bound by their vows and had intrigued for the
injury and confusion of the house and their
sister nuns. “They had revealed the secrets of
the chapter to seculars and to adversaries outside.
At the same time the archbishop wrote to Avice
de la More that he had learnt with a bitter
heart that she had broken her vow of obedience
in arrogancy and elation of heart towards her
prioress, who was placed in charge of her soul
and body, and without whom she had no proper
will? The archbishop exhorted her in the
Lord to desist from such behaviour, and study to
live according to rule,

There is after this a long silence in the Registers
as to Nunkeeling, except records of the election
and confirmation of prioresses of the house. On
4 March 144418 Archbishop Kemp wrote to
Joan Bramston, the prioress, on behalf of Alice
Dalton, one of the nuns who had been guilty of
immorality and had apostatized. She had
undergone a penance at Yedingham, where she
had exhibited much contrition, and now desired
to be received back at Nunkeeling, and this the
archbishop directed to be done.

On 8 October 1487 3° Archbishop Rotherham
granted licence to the prioress and convent to
celebrate yearly the day of the deposition of the
glorious confessor, St. John of Bridlington, as a

18 York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 2734.
M Ibid. fol. 2764. * Ibid. fol. 280.
16 Tbid. fol. 281.

¢Et sine qua velle non habes proprium.’
8 York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 87.
1Tbid. Rotherham, i, fol. 78.

double feast, and ordered ‘officia divina de pro-
pria historia dicti gloriosi confessoris, ipso die
dicenda, legenda, et cantanda’ in the monastic
church.

Nunkeeling was one of the religious houses in
the county which for some unknown reason
escaped immediate dissolution with the rest,
being refounded by Letters Patent on
14 December 1537, but it surrendered in 1540.”
The deed of surrender has no signature, but the
convent seal is attached. The last prioress,
Christine Burgh, or Brughe, belonged to the
Richmondshire family of that name, and after the
Dissolution she settled at Catterick, where she
survived till 1566. In her will?! she describes
herself as ‘Cristine Burghe of Rychemond in
the countie of Yorke, gentylwoman, and laite
Priores of the laite dissolved nunrie of Nunkyl-
lyng,’ and directs that her body is to be buried in
the choir of Richmond Church. One bequest is
to ‘Isabell Bane, gentylwoman, some tyma sister
of Nunkyllyng,’ to whom she left ‘one old
ryall.’*? The total of her effects was valued at
£14 Ios. 10d,

In a list of the members of the convent which
seems to have been drawn up on 30 May 1536”
“Nonnekelyng’ is described as of the Order of
St. Benedict; Joan Alanson, aged sixty, was
prioress, and the other nuns were: Cristine
Burgh (46), Agnes Hall (54), Alice Stapleton
(40), Margaret Sedgewick (46), Elizabeth Bayne
(40), Joan Mason (55), Isabella Mettam (36),
Alice Mason (36), Alice Thomlynson (36),
Dorothea Wilberfosse (25), and Joan Bowman
(26). They are described as ‘ All good religious
persons of good maner,’ and against each name
is written in the margin ‘religion,’ indicating
that each desired to remain bound by her vows.

In 1526 the house was valued at £22 155.6d.4
clear, and at the suppression at £35 155. 5d.”

PrIoREssEs OF NUNKEELING

Avice, occurs 1250 ™

Agnes de Beverley, confirmed 1267 *
Agnes la Ruisse, occurs 1273,”” 1300 8

7 Burton, Mon. Ebor. 385.

"| Richmondshire Wills (Surt. Soc.), 191.

In 1548, when an inquiry was made as to the
payment of pensions, return is made, ‘ Cristen Burgh
of thage of Ix yeres pencion by yere vij li and is
paid,’ of Isabell Bane the note is ‘abest’ ; Exch. K.R.
Accts. bdle. 76, no. 23. ‘Isabell Beine’ was still in
receipt of her pension of 46s. 8¢. in 15733; Yorks.
Arch, Fourn, xix, 102.

3 Suppression Papers (P.R.O.), ii, 139.

*S.P. Dom. 1526. (Return signed by Brian
Higdon.)

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 385.

%a Assize R. 1046, m. 62.

77 Add. MS. 26736, fol. 174.

8 Baildon, Mon. Notes, 163.

3 121 16

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Avice de Mora,?? sub-prioress,” succeeded
1303,*' resigned 1316”

Isabella de St. Quintin, 1316,°? occurs 1329 *

Isabella de Burton, admitted 1400 *

Joan Bossall, occurs 1423 *°

Joan Berneston,” occurs 1434,°° resigned
1453 %

Joan Trym, sub-prioress, 1453," died 1493 a

Eleanor Rooce, confirmed 1493

Margaret Fulthorpe, confirmed 1504* died
1505 *

Isabella Metham, confirmed 1505 *

Joan Alanson, sub-prioress, confirmed 152

Christine Brughe, confirmed 1537 *

The 13th-century seal ** is a vesica, 23 in. by
2in., with a full-length figure of the patron saint
holding the cross. Of the nearly destroyed
legend there remains :

« » . IGILL . .. NE DE KILLIN...

16. THE PRIORY OF NUN MONKTON

This house appears from a confirmation by
Archbishop Henry Murdac (1147-53),' to have
been founded in the reign of Stephen by
William de Arches and Ivetta his wife, who
granted to God and St. Mary and to Maud their
daughter and the nuns of Monkton 6 carucates
of land in Monkton, and half a carucate in
Hammerton, and the churches of ‘orp’
(Thorp Arch)? Hammerton, ‘ Escham’ (Askham

*® Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 145.

*® Burton, Mon. Ebor. 387.

3! Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 145.

% Tbid. fol. 258.

®% Burton, Mon. Ebor. 387.

“Baildon, Mon. Notes, 163.

85 Harl. MS. 6969, fol. 87.

3° Baildon, Mon. Notes, 163.

* York Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 106.

88 Baildon, Mon. Noves, 163. ® Tbid.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 106.

“ bid. Rotherham, i, fol. 79. “ Thid.

“Ibid. Savage, fol. 53. “' Thid. fol. 56.

* Tbid. © Ibid. Wolsey, fol. 58.

7 Ibid. Lee, fol. 31.

® Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3349; Harl. Chart. 44 E. 56.

1 Dugdale, Alen. Angi. iv, 194.

?The church of Thorp Arch was also given
by Adam de Brus and Ivetta de Arches to St.
Sepu'chre’s chapel at York. An agreement be-
tween the nuns and the chapter of the chapel was
confirmed by Archbishop Walter Gray in 1226.
The nuns were to possess all they had in ‘ Torp,’
including its chapel of ‘Waleton’ (Walton), when
the suit began, but to cede all their right to the
church of ‘Torp,’? and the charter of Archbishop
Henry Murdac (above mentioned) as well as others
of Archbishops Roger and Geoffrey touching the
church ; Archoishop Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 2; Bur-
ton, Alen. Ebor. 87.

Richard), and ‘ Kirkby juxta Useburn’ (Kirkby
Wharfe). The latter church Elias de Ho had
granted at the counsel of William de Arches.

The way in which the name of William and
Ivetta’s daughter, Maud, is introduced can only
mean that she was prioress of the house.

Nun Monkton, although close to York, was
within the archdeaconry of Richmond, and on
that account the archbishops’ registers have very
little about it.

In 1278 Mary the prioress and her nuns
bound themselves to John de Bellewe and
Laderne, his wife, to keep the obit of their
daughter Alice with a pittance of halfa mark in
value, and also the obits of John and his wife
after each of them died, in return for 10 acres
of land and the quitclaim of a five-shilling rent
in Thorp Arch.

At an inquisition in 1307 * it was found that
the ancestors of Nicholas de Stapleton at the
time of the vacancy of the house were accustomed
to have the custody of the house and to place
guards in the same at their will, but at no time
received anything of the issues of the house by
reason of that custody.

The patronage of Nun Monkton priory had
come to Nicholas de Stapleton from his mother
Sybil, daughter and co-heir of John Bellewe, to
whom it came from the Bruces, as representing
the founder, William de Arches.

An account of the visitation of Nun Monkton
by Thomas Dalby, Archdeacon of Richmond, on
30 April 1397 ° gives a very unfavourable descrip-
tion of the condition of the nunnery at the time.
It was objected against the prioress, Margaret
Fayrfax,® that she wore different kinds of furs,
and even grey furs, and silk veils. She also
held the post of bursaria, and had alienated a large
amount of timber, to the value of 100 marks. She
frequently indulged in too much companionship
with John Monkton, and invited him to festivities

3 Add. Chart. 17962 (1).

* Yorks. Ing. (ed. W. Brown), iv, 144.

5 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 194.

® Margaret Fayrfax was the sister of John Fayrfax
rector of Prescot, who by will dated 7 June 1393
(Test. Ebor. i, 186) left to the prioress and convent
of Monkton his white vestment embroidered with
golden stars, and his silver-gilt cross with Mary and
John, also a silver-gilt chalice. To Margaret
Fayrfax, the prioress, his sister, he left a silver-
gilt cup with a cover, another silver cup with a
cover, a maser with a silver-gilt cover, a silver box
for sweetmeats, six silver spoons, an armilansa of
black cloth, furred with grey, a silver basin and 10
marks of silver. To Margaret de Cotam, nun of
Monkton, 135. 4d. She succeeded as prioress.

Margaret Fayrfax was a candidate for the office of
prioress on the death of Margaret de Willesthorp,
when Isabella Nevill was elected, ten votes being cast
for her against two for Margaret Fayrfax. There
were fifteen nuns entitled to vote; Dugdale, Mon.
Angi. iv, 193 n.

122

RELIGIOUS

(convivia) in her chamber. She frequently wore
a surplice (superpellitio) without a mantle, in
quire and elsewhere, contrary to the manner of
the dress of nuns and the ancient custom of the
priory. The nuns who had lapsed into the sin
of fornication she reinstated far too easily. She
allowed nuns to receive presents from their
friends for their maintenance. John Monkton,
by whom the house had suffered scandal, fre-
quently played ad tabulas with the prioress in
her chamber, and she supplied him with drink.

Peremptory injunctions were issued to the
prioress and nuns on 8 July 1397 that John
Monkton alias Alanson, Don William Aschby,
chaplain, William Snowe, and Thomas Pape
were not to have conversation or companionship
(comitivam) with them, or with any nun of the
house, except in the presence of two of the older
and honest nuns, under pain of excommunica-
tion. The nuns were not to allow clerks to fre-
quent their priory without a reasonable cause,

Nuns who were ill were to be compelled to go
to the infirmitorium and were to be supplied there
with necessaries from the revenues of the church
of Askham. None were to use silk clothes, es-
pecially not silken veils nor valuable furs, nor
rings on their fingers, nor tunics pleated (/aque-
atis), or with brooches (fibu/atis), nor any jupis,
anglicé ‘gounes,’ after the fashion of secular
women. Nor for the future were the commem-
orations of souls to be inany way omitted, under
the pain for two whole weeks carentiae camisarum
quarumcunque.?

The little nunnery of Monkton affords two
instances of the expenses incurred in the ‘mak-
ing’ of a nun.

In 1429-30,° Richard Fayrfax ‘scwyer, on
tyme lorde of Walton,’ made arrangements that
his daughter ‘ Elan’ should bemadea nun of Nun
Monkton, and with that object he enfeoffed his
nephew, Mr. Brian Fayrfax, clerk, and his brothers
Guy, John, and Thomas and a certain Edmund
Woodcok in the manors of Walton and Folifayt
(Follifoot) of an annual rent of 5 marks ‘ gangyng
out of ye milne of ‘Thorpparch,’ and other pro-
perty, willing ‘yat my doghtir Elan be made nun
in ye house of Nun Monkton, and yat my saydes
fefis graunt a nanuel rent of fourty schilyngs
gangyng out ye maners of Folifayt and Acaster
Malbis . . . terme of ye lyffe of ye sayd Elan
to ye tym be at sche be a nun.’ His feoffees
were to pay 19 marks ‘ for ye makyng of ye sayd
Elan Nun.’ He naively added that ‘if sche will
be no nun” his wife and feoffees were to marry
her at their discretion. She becameanun, how-
ever, and as ‘dompna Elena Fayrefaxe’ was
admitted to the Corpus Christi Guild, York, in
1445.° The other instance is headed, ‘Expensae
factae super et pro Elizabetha Sywardby facta

7 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 194.
8 Add. Chart. 1782.
® Reg. Corpus Christi Guild, 44.

HOUSES

moniali in Munkton,’ ” and is part of the inven-
tory of the effects of Elizabeth widow of William
Sywardby (or Sewerby as the name is now spelt.)
She had bequeathed to her niece Elizabeth,
daughter of John Sewerby, a considerable sum to
enable her to become a nun of Nun Monkton.
The sums expended were £3, which the prioress
and convent of Nun Monkton claimed by custom
to have as their fee; £3 135. 74d. for Elizabeth
Sewerby’s habit, and other ‘bodily utensils,’ as
well as a ‘competent’ bed; £3 115. 4d. ex-
penses on Sunday next after the feast of the
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (7 September)
1470, spent on the prioress and convent and
the friends of Elizabeth Sewerby ; and 25. to
brother John Hamylton for preaching on the
occasion.

A copy of asurvey (29 Henry VIII) of the
demesnes of Nun Monkton Priory after its disso-
lution is printed in the Monasticon,4 but there
is an earlier survey for 27-8 Henry VIII.”

Prioresses OF Nun Monkton

Maud de Arches (first prioress), temp.
Stephen ¥

Agnes, occurs 1224-7 14

Amabel, occurs 1240

Avice, occurs 1251,!° 1268”

Mary, occurs 1278

Mariota, occurs 1278-9 ¥

Alice de Thorp,” died before 1346

Margaret Willesthorpe,”! confirmed 1365,
died 1376

Isabel Neville, elected 1376”

Margaret Fayrfax, occurs 1393

Margaret Cotam,™ occurs 1404

Maud de Goldesburgh, elected 1421,”

occurs 1429 8
Margaret Watir, occurs 1473 7
Margaret, occurs 151478
Joan, occurs 1535”

Test. Edor. iii, 168. In both instances a pay-
ment had to be made prior to the admission of
the new nun. ‘This was a simoniacal transaction
frequently denounced by the archbishops in visitation
decreta. A voluntary offering might be made, but the
claim to receive £3 at Nun Monkton according to
custom was an infringement of the rule.

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 195.

” Mins. Accts. Yorks. 27-8 Hen. VIII, no. 119.

8 See above. 4 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 165.

4 Thid. * Thid.

” Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 193.

8 Add. Chart. 17962 (1).

19 Assize R. 1055, m. 46.

"| Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 193.

7 Burton, Mon. Ebor. 88.

3 Test, Ebor. i, 189. * Baildon’s MS. Notes.

> Burton, Mon. Ebor. 88. * Baildon’s MS. Notes.

” Reg. Corpus Christi Guild, York, 92.

8 Willis, Mitred Abbies, ii, 280.

® Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 255.

Test. Ebor. i, 31.

123

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

17. THE PRIORY OF THICKET

The small nunnery of Thicket, in the parish
of Wheldrake near the River Derwent, was
founded in the reign of Richard I by Roger
Fitz Roger,! whose gifts were confirmed by King
John in 1203-4.

A commission issued 23 April 1301, to the
Prior of Ellerton,? to receive the profession of the
Lady Elizabeth de Lasceles, as a regular nun of
the house, in the presence of the prioress and con-
vent. On 5 February 1302-3 ° the archbishop
wrote to the prioress and convent respecting
Alice Darel, of Wheldrake, an apostate nun of
their house, directing that if she returned to them
in a contrite spirit they were to impose upon her
the penance provided by their rule, but if she did
not willingly undergo it, then they were to place
her in some secure chamber, under safe custody.

On 1 February 1308-94 Archbishop Green-
field issued injunctions to the prioress and con-
vent, as a result of a recent visitation of the
house, that the repairs to certain of the buildings
which had been found necessary at the last visi-
tation were to be immediately carried out. The
nuns, and especially the younger of them, were,
unless ill, to keep convent and be diligent in
attendance at divine services. The archbishop
enjoined that in future servants and other seculars
should in no wise be allowed to go into the
kitchen and sit, and take their meals there as they
chose, and so witness the private affairs (secreta)
of the nuns. The prioress was to keep convent
in church, refectory, dormitory and other due
places, unless lawfully hindered, and when she
had a meal in her chamber she was to have at
table with her one of the nuns, first one and then
another.

Corrodies, annual pensions, long leases of
granges, were strictly forbidden, as was the recep-
tion of any person as nun, sister or conversus,
or the retention of girls over twelve or secular
women as boarders, without the archbishop’s
special licence.

Another visitation ® was held in 1314, when
the archbishop again issued a long decretum con-
taining a series of injunctions almost wholly the
same as those just recited. “The archbishop
further directed that no person admitted as a
sister was to be allowed to accept or wear the
nuns’ black veil.

Four years later,® in 1318, Archbishop Melton
visited Thicket and promulgated a decretum con-
cerning it, containing a series of injunctions
general rather than specific in character. The

' Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 384 ; Burton, Mon. Ebor.
280.

? York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 24. This
is the only allusion hitherto met with in the York
Registers relating to the formal professing of a nun.

5S Ibid. fol. 374. ‘ Ibid. Greenfield, i, fol. 944,

* Ibid. ii, fol. 1054. © Ibid. Melton, fol. 231.

house was heavily in debt, and in consequence
the prioress and all the nuns were enjoined to use
all possible economy. The sick, so far as the
means of the house allowed, were to have lighter
food substituted for that which they were
receiving.

In 1335” Elizabeth del Haye was elected
prioress, but on account of informality the arch-
bishop quashed the election. As, however, all
the nuns had voted for her, he appointed her, and
directed the rector of Wheldrake to proceed to
the priory and install her in office.

On 26 January 1343-48 Archbishop Zouch
wrote to the prioress and convent concerning
Joan de Crakenholme, their sister nun, who was
coming to them absolved from her crimes of
apostasy in frequently leaving the house, laying
aside her habit, as well as other excesses which
are not stated. For her notorious sins the
archbishop had imposed the following, in addi-
tion to her private penance. She was not to
wear the black veil, or speak to any secular person
of either sex, or with her sister nuns, except by
leave of the prioress. She was not to go out of the
cloister into the church, but was to be confined ina
secure place near the church, in such a way, how-
ever, that she could be at matins and masses cele-
brated in the church, she was to do such things
as were burdensome and not of honour, attending
nevertheless divine service. She was not to dis-
patch any letter, or receive any sent to her.
Each Wednesday and Friday she was to have
bread, vegetables and light ale, and was to eat and
drink on the bare ground, and on each of those
days was to receive a discipline from the prioress
and each of the nuns in chapter. She was to
take the last place in quire, and not to enter
the chapter except to receive her discipline, and
was to retire immediately she had received it.
Two nuns were to be appointed by the prioress
as her guardians, to see to the execution of the
archbishop’s orders, and the prioress was to have
all carried out as a terror to others. It is one of
the most severe punishments visited on any monk
or nun recorded in York Registers, but it was not
the only one which Archbishop Zouch had to
inflict on a nun of Thicket, for he wrote on
20 April 1352°to the prioress, to punish Isabella
de Lyndesay, a nun whose faults had been
recently revealed at a visitation held by his com-
missaries, and the prioress was to report before
Pentecost how she had behaved during the per-
formance of her penance.

Archbishop Rotherham issued on 16 October
1484 a letter asking for help for the house of
the nuns of Thicket, whose fields and pasturage
had been inundated by floods, and who had
suffered much loss by the death of their cattle.

7 Ibid. fol. 323.
® Ibid. fol. 173.
Ibid. Rotherham, i, 208.

* Ibid. Zouch, fol. 1544.

124

RELIGIOUS

Among the suppression papers is a list of the
nuns, which has been subsequently altered at a
date three years later, as the ages of some of the
nuns are altered and made three years older.’
This is the case with similar lists of the immates
of other houses. The names of twelve nuns are
given, and they are said to be ‘all of good liffyng.’
In the first draft Katherine Chapman, aged forty-
eight, is mentioned as prioress, but the name has
been crossed out and ‘Agnes Bekwith prioress
46,’ is written at the topof the list. ‘The names
of two others are also struck out: either they had
left the house, or were dead. It seems as if the
list had been used for checking purposes, as one
of the nuns (Dorothea Ryght), whose age had
already been changed from thirty to thirty-three,
was afterwards struck through.

There is a note that Henry Wylkynson, the
nuns’ chaplain, had his appointment by way of a
corrody granted 10 April 1526 by Katherine,
prioress ‘of the monastery of oure lady sant
Mary of Thykhed of Sannt Benett ordre,’ and
that he during his life shall ‘ abyde and continue
styll in service as chapleyn in ye said priory.’ ”

In the reign of Edward VI complaint was
made that many of the pensions promised to the
ex-religious had not been paid. Inquiry was
made, and in the East Riding return made in the
sixth year of his reign (1552-3), the names of
seven ex-nuns of Thicket are given.!® In this it
is only definitely stated that one of the number,
Margaret Swale, had received the money due to
her. In 1573 Agnes Beckwith alone survived,
when she received her pension of £6 13s. 4d.,
12s., however, being deducted as a subsidy paid
to the queen.

There is no valuation of Thicket Priory in the
Taxatio of 1292. Inthe Valor Ecclesiasticus the
total revenues were £23 12s. 2d., and the clear
annual value £20 18s. 4d.’* The house pos-
sessed no spiritualities, its property lay in West
Cottingwith with Thorganby, Sutton-on-
Derwent, Norton, Sand Hutton, Wheldrake,
Escrick, Green Hammerton, York City (two
parva cotagia), Spaldington and Allerthorpe.’®

PRIoRESSES OF "THICKET

Sibilla, 7 occurs 1218
Eva, occurs 1231

"The original date of the Thicket list seems to
have been 13 June 28 Hen. VIII (1536), which has
been altered to 27 Aug. 31 Hen. VIII (1539); Sup-
pression P. (P.R.O.), ii, 48.

1 Tbid. 58.

8 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 23.

4 Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xix, 100-4. She was ap-
parently forty-six years of age in 1539; Suppression P.
(P.R.O.), ii, 48.

8 Op. cit. v, 94.

16 Suppression P. (P.R.O.), ii.

Y Feet of F. Hil. 3 Hen. III, file 141, no. §3.

18 Tbid. East. 15 Hen. III, file 23, no. 19.

HOUSES

Joan, occurs 1280-1304," 1306”

Alice de Alverthorpe,”! confirmed 1309

Elizabeth del Haye,” appointed 1335

Hawise,”® occurs 1412

Alice Darwent,” occurs 1432

Beatrice,” occurs 14.79

Mary Dawson,” occurs 1497

Katherine Chapman, a nun of St. Clement’s
York, confirmed 1525,?” occurs 1535”

Agnes Beckwith ®

18. THE PRIORY OF WILBERFOSS

It is not evident when, or by whom, the
priory of St. Mary Wilberfoss was founded.
Leland states! that Alan of Catton was the
founder, and in a confirmation in 14647 by
George, Duke of Clarence, at that time patron
and founder, it is said that Alan gave his hall
(aula) in Wilberfoss, and all other lands. Alan’s
charter is, however, preceded by one by Jordan
son of Gilbert, who granted the nuns the church
of Wilberfoss with its chapel of Newton and
7 bovates of land. In neither case is any definite
date indicated, but the confirmation of Jordan’s
gift of the church of Wilberfoss by his overlord,
William de Percy, is addressed to Henry,*® Arch-
bishop of York (who died in 1153), and the
ratification was granted by Archbishop Roger,*
who succeeded in 1154.

Henry II confirmed the gifts to the nuns, as
their charters testified, and Henry II in 1227
confirmed several other grants of land fully
specified. In 1282-3° Archbishop Wickwane
wrote to the nuns that he had learnt from public
report that they had burdened their house at the
instance of great persons by receiving nuns, and
taking secular women and girls as_ boarders.
This he strictly forbade. On 7 May 1294°
Archbishop Romanus committed the custody of
the house to Robert, rector of Sutton-on-Der-
went.

A visitation of Wilberfoss was held by com-
missioners of Archbishop Greenfield in 1308,’
and the archbishop sent a decretum, much of

Burton, Mon, Ebor. 192-280; Baildon, Moz.
Notes, i.

"| York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 118.

” Ibid. Melton, fol. 323.

3 Baildon’s MS. Notes. * Thid.

* Reg. Corpus Christi Guild, York, 104.

7 York Archiepis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 82.

* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 94.

® L. and P. Hen. VIII, xv, p. 551.

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 354.

* Ibid. 356, no. v.

‘ Ibid. 355, no. ii.

5 York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 20, 175.

§ Ibid. Romanus, fol. 674.

7 Ibid. Greenfield, fol. 95.

5 Tbid.

125

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

which is in common form. Special features are
that the nuns were not to linger in the Aostilaria
or elsewhere for amusement with outsiders after
compline, and that they were not to wear red,
or unsuitable clothes, nor supertunics too long,
like secular women, as some had begun to do.

The doors of the church, dormitory, and those
round the cloister were to be closed at the proper
time. At the election which followed the
resignation of Emma de Waltringham in 13108
the names of the nuns are given: Emma de
Waltringham, the late prioress, comes first, and it
is said ‘consentit in dominam Margaretam de
Alta Ripa, et eligit eam,’ Beatrice de Neuton,
the sub-prioress, comes next ; then follow in order
Matildis Gurneys, Matildis Dine, Alicia Vghtred,
sacrista, Maria de Preston, Margareta Chauncy,
celeraria, Hawisia de Barton, Isolda Cayvill,
cantrix, Elena Gra, alia sacrista, Helewis de
Langtoft, senex domina, Matildis de Wyktoft,
Lucia de Collurn, hostelaria, Margareta de
Brampton, alia celeraria, Agnes Dareyns, Juliana
Darreyns, Isabella de Milington, Agnes de
Lutton, and Johanna de Portington ; nineteen,
who all voted for Margaret Dawtrey. From
this it appears that there were then twenty nuns,
and it is added, ‘nec sunt plures moniales in
domo predicta.’

In 1312° one of them, Agnes de Lutton, got
into trouble, and Archbishop Greenfield imposed
the usual penance for immorality.

A commission was issued in 1319? for the
election of a prioress, but no names are mentioned.

In 1348” Archbishop Zouch wrote to Isabella
Spynys, the prioress, commending her for her
good government, and granting her, if she decided
to resign, to occupy for life certain buildings
adjoining the common cellar. ‘These had been
constructed by contributions from her relations
and friends.

In 1397 the house was in a bad financial state,
and the Chapter of York (both see and deanery
being vacant) issued a letter” on behalf of the
nuns, whose revenues had become so small that
they were insufficient for their sustenance. In
1409 ’8 Archbishop Bowett issued a commission
to inquire respecting the excesses and defects of
Eleanor Dakyrs, the prioress,

Little is known of the subsequent history of
the nunnery. In 1526 its clear annual value

* The account of the election. occurs on three slips
of parchment, inscribed between folio 118 and folio
119 of Archbishop Greenfield’s register.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 944.

1 Ibid. Melton, fol. 276.

1 Tbid. Zouch, fol. 193.

Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 217. Pope Boniface IX had
also granted, on 20 Dec. 1389, a relaxation of penance
to penitents who on the feast of the dedication visited
and gave alms towards the conservation of the church
of the Benedictine priory of Wilberfoss ; Ca/. of Papal
Letters, wv, 393.

8 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 354.

was returned as only £12, the smallest of any
monastery in the East Riding except Nunburn-
holme.* There were at the Dissolution eleven
nuns?® including Elizabeth Lord, the prioress,
‘all of good conversation.’ Against all the
names, except that of the prioress and the three
younger nuns whose names come last, is written
the word ‘religion,’ indicating that they desired
to keep their vows. The prioress received a
yearly pension of £8, the others either 335. 4d.
or 26s, 8d., two however only receiving 205.

PRIORESSES OF WILBERFOSS

Christiana, occurs 1231 to 1235 1°

Letitia, occurs 1240

Isabella, living 1276 "8

Emma, occurs 12987 (de Waltringham),
resigned 1310

Margaret Dawtrey, elected 13107!

[Name unknown] elected 1319 *

Isabella de Spynys, occurs 1348 *8

Agnes, occurs 1396 *4

Eleanor Dakyrs, occurs 1409 *

Emmota Farethorpe, occurs 1438 *8

Elizabeth, occurs 1464 77

Anne Kirkby, confirmed 1475,"8 resigned

1479

Margaret Easingwald, confirmed 1479, died
1512 %

Elizabeth Lord, confirmed 1512,? last
prioress

“S.P. Dom. 1526 (Return made by Brian

Higdon).
'’ Suppression P. (P.R.O.), ii, 64.
© Baildon, Mon. Notes,i, 226. “Ibid. 3 Ibid.

Coram Rege R. 155, m. 26.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 119.

" Tbid. * Tbid. Melton, fol. 276.

® Ibid. Zouch, fol. 193.

* Baildon’s MS. Notes.

* Dugdale, Mon. .4ng/. iv, 354.

© Reg. of Wills, York, iii, fol. 542. John Appilby
of Wilberfoss by will (17 Sept. 1438) bequeathed
‘domine Emmote Farethorpe priorisse de Wilberfosse
unum lectum ad electionem suam propriam,’ and
named her his executrix.

* Mentioned in charter of confirmation ; Dugdale,
Mon. Angi. iv, 356, no. v.

* York Archiepis. Reg. G. Nevill, fol. 175.

» Ibid. L. Booth, fol. 111. *° Ibid.

*' Ibid. Bainbridge, fol. 425. Her gravestone was
moved to Pocklington Church, where it still remains ;
Arch. Fourn. v, 337.

* Ibid. Elizabeth Lord after the Dissolution went
to live at York, where her sister had married George
Gale, goldsmith and Lord Mayor of the city in 1534
and 1549. Elizabeth Lord died in 1550-1. In her
will (Test. Edor. vi, 307) she directed that her body
was to be ‘ buried in the grownde within the churche
of the Holie Trinitie in Gotheromgate, in the ladie
quere, nyghe unto my broder’s stall in the said
churche.’ In 1553 the site of the priory of Wil-
berfoss was granted to her brother-in-law, George
Gale ; Reg. of Corpus Christi Guild, York, 174 n.

126

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

19. THE PRIORY OF YEDINGHAM

The priory of Yedingham, sometimes called
that of Little Mareis,! from the site on which
the house was built, was founded before 1163 ?
by Helewise de Clere.

In 1239* a compact was entered into between
John, Prior of Guisborough, and Emma, Prioress
of Yedingham, and their respective convents,
that Guisborough should give the nuns 4 oxgangs
of land in Sinnington, with tofts, crofts, &c., the
nuns paying the canons yearly 15s. at Sherburn,
and undertaking to support the chapel of St.
Michael at Sinnington, and other buildings for
the better entertaining the canons when there,
with clean litter, candles, and fuel ; and to have
mass celebrated in St. Michael’s chapel thrice a
week. ‘This was not the parish church, but a
chapel north of it.

On 16 August 1241‘ the church of Yeding-
ham was consecrated by Gilbert, Bishop of
Whithern, suffragan of Archbishop Gray, in
honour of the most blessed Virgin Mary, at the
instance of Emma de Humbleton, the prioress,

‘and the convent. The bishop granted an

indulgence of 100 days to those present, and
directed that the anniversary should be kept as a
perpetual festival, with an indulgence of forty
days to those who came toit. It is not quite
clear whether this was the church of the monas-
tery, or the parish church.

On1 March 1279-80° Archbishop Wick-
wane appointed Robert de Brus of Pickering to
the custody of the house of the nuns of Yeding-
ham and its temporalities, hoping that he might
by his diligence, God helping, be able to supply
the defects of the poor servants of Christ serving
God there.

Monitions forbidding nuns of different houses
to take anyone to their habit without special
licence from the archbishop are commonly met
with in the injunctions issued after visitations.
Records of the granting of any such licences are
very rare, but on 23 March 1309-10°% Arch-
bishop Greenfield wrote to Yedingham about
one Agnes de Daneby, whose honest conversation
he approved, and he permitted the prioress and
convent to receive her ad habitum et velum. Her
age is not given, but she is alluded to as puella.

At his visitation of Arthington Archbishop
Greenfield .dealt with the case of Isabella de

1So called eg. in ‘Fee Farm Roll, Aug. Off.’
cited by Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 277, no. xil; also
‘moniales de Parvo Marisco ’ confirmation of Henry IJ,
Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 275, no. ii, &c.

? This limit of date is ascertained as John, Treasurer
of York, is a witness. In 1163 he became Bishop of
Poitiers ; Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 275, no. ii.

3 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 273.

* Ibid. 275, no. ili.

. § York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 124, 115.

6 Ibid. Greenfield, i, fol. 962.

Berghby, which is fully described in the account
of that house. There is nothing said there as
to sending her away from her house, but on
28 September 1312’ the archbishop wrote to
the nuns of Yedingham that at his recent visita-
tion of the house of Arthington, of their order,®
he had found Isabella de Berghby had acted
contrary to the honesty of religion, and he there-
fore sent her to them for a season, to undergo
penance.

In 1314° Archbishop Greenfield allowed the
prioress and convent to receive Alice daughter
of Roger de Wyghton to the habit of the
conversae in their monastery ; at the same time
very strictly enjoining them that no sister conversa
was, on any account, to be allowed to wear the
black veil on her head, but was to use a white
veil. In this entry the lay sisters are called
conversae, and sorores conversae, whereas elsewhere
they are usually called sorores° only, in contra-
distinction to the nuns (designated dominae or
moniales) on the one hand, and the conversi, or
lay brothers, on the other. The conversi seem
to have been attached to most of the nunneries."

In 1314 Archbishop Greenfield held a visita-
tion of Yedingham,! and issued a series of
injunctions to the nuns. No nun was to be
absent from service ‘ propter occupacionem operis
de serico.” Going to and from the kitchen through
the cloister, by secular men and women, was on
no account to be allowed. The prioress was to
depute a mature and honest nun to shut the
doors round the cloister at proper hours, and if
that nun was negligent, she was to correct and
chastise her. The parlour of the house was on
no account in future to be used by lay people.
The prioress was to be careful that none of the
nuns made themselves conspicuous as to their
girdles, or other ornaments. Rebellious nuns
were to be openly corrected before the convent
and not secretly, for that was agreeable with
divine and human law. The sick were to be
tended according to their needs, and as the means
of the house allowed.% The prioress was not to

T Ibid. ii, fol. 93.

® The expression ‘of your order’ should be noted.
Arthington was a Cluniac house, Yedingham Bene-
dictine.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 105.

<Te sisterhouse’ at Yedingham is spoken of in
the grant to Emma Hert, quoted later.

"Many instances occur, as at Arden, Marrick,
Swine, and several other nunneries in the county.

% York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 101.

8 Farlier in the same year the archbishop had
granted licence to Margaret de Shyrburn, one of the
nuns ill of dropsy, that a secular girl, Maud de
Meteham, who used to wait upon her, but who had
had to leave on attaining the age of twelve, might
return, and serve her as before, and that for the sake
of improving her health she might with honest com-
pany visit her friends and relatives ; York Archiepis.
Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 1044.

127

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

be too rigid nor too gentle, but was to mingle
oil with wine in making corrections. The
usual injunctions were given as to limiting exeats
to fifteen days, and not selling corrodies, &c., or
taking boarders without special licence. Richard
de Breuse, kt., who through his wife Alice
had become patron, conceded to the nuns the
right to choose a prioress upon each vacancy,
who was to be presented to the patron for the
time being, and also to the archbishop, and he
and his wife renounced all personal claim in the
choice of a prioress.)#

In 1494 Innocent IV granted the prioress and
convent the right of electing a discreet priest to
be their confessor.

Two entries only occur in the Taxation in
1291, the temporalities of the house in the arch-
deaconry of Cleveland (£35 18s. 2d.), and the
church of Yedingham (£6 135. 4d.).1° On
29 July 1456 Archbishop Booth granted an
indulgence of forty days to all penitents who
contributed to the reparation of the conventual
church and of the buildings of the priory of
Yedingham, which on account of the notorious
poverty of the house were ruinous: some had
actually fallen, and others threatened.

A grant was made 14 July 1530 to Thomas
Stokall, priest, of the ‘parish priestshipp’ of Sin-
nington, and in December 1538 the reversion
of the same was granted to Thomas Hew, priest,
immediately after Sir Robert Stokall, who then
held the same. The latter, it may be added,
still held the post in 33 Henry VIII, and in the
account of John Beckwith, receiver, the rent
of the rectory of Sinnington is set down at
£5 18s. 4d., besides £4 the stipend of Robert
Stokall, curate.’® It is evident from these grants
that Sinnington must have been a donative in
the absolute gift of the house of Yedingham.

There are a great many other leases and grants,
dating from about 1350 to the Dissolution,
belonging to Yedingham among the Conventual
Leases at the Record Office; one especially, dated
in the chapter-house of Yedingham 12 May
1352,’ is of interest. It is a grant made from
Alice Pykering, prioress, and the convent of
Yedingham of a yearly corrodium moniale, given
in return for an unspecified sum of money to
Emma daughter of Nicholas Hert of Westerdale.
She was to receive, among other benefits, each
week seven conventual loaves of wheat, 34 /agenas
of the convent ale, and to be provided with flesh,
fish and cheese from the kitchen, like a nun of
the house, and was to share in all small pittances

™ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 275, no. iv ; Burton, Mon.
Ebor. 286.

% Burton, Mon. Ebor. 286.

7 Conventual Leases (P.R.O.), Yorks. no. 1096.

8 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 278.

1 Conventual Leases (P.R.O.), Yorks. no. 1075,

1079.

like a nun. Further, she was to have ten sheep,
and ten ewes with lambs till the time of their
separation, at the convent’s charge and in their
pasturage. A certain building called ‘le chese-
house,’ with solar and cellar, was assigned her
to dwell in, and in return she promised to work
faithfully as long as she could, ‘ circa lacticinia ®
infra dictam domum del’ chesehouse,’ according
to the orders of the prioress and cellaress. When,
however, ‘amplius laborare non poterit causa
senectutis vel infirmitatis,’ then the convent was
to grant Emma Hert an honest place for her bed
and other belongings in their house gue vocatur le
sisterhouse, for the rest of her life.

At the Dissolution *! there were nine nuns
besides Agnes Bradrigge, aged forty-one, the
prioress, who received a yearly pension of
£6 135. 4d.; two of them received yearly
pensions of 40s., and the others of 26s. 8d.
They are described as ‘all of good maner of
liffyng,’ and against each name, except one, the
word ‘religion’ is written in the margin, indi-
cating an intention to remain in their vows.

When an inquiry was made as to the payment
of pensions, the return (7 Edward VI)” for the
North Riding says Agnes ‘ Braddreges’ and Agnes
Butterfield ‘appeared not,’ Joan ‘ Horton’ ap
peared with her patent, Anne Paycok appeared
not, Elizabeth Ferman appeared with her patent,
and Jaine Foster appeared with her patent, ‘ and
is behynde for a holle yere at Michelmas last past.’

PRIORESSES OF YEDINGHAM
Sibil,”* 1219

Beatrix *4

Emma de Humbleton, 1241
Gundred, 1280 *

Margaret Scard,” 12908

Alice,”® 1300 *

Alice, 1335

Joan Percehay, 1348 *

Margaret de Lutton,® died 1345
Alice de Pickering, elected 1352 *4
Gundreda *°

Lacticinia, milk foods, cheese, &c.

1 Suppression P. (P.R.O.), ii, 76, 81.

™ Exch. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 24.

8 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 229.

* Guisborough Chartul. ii, 306.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 275.

77 Burton, Mon. Ebor. 287.

8 Baildon, wt supra.

*® Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 275.

8 Baildon, ut supra.

531 Conventual Leases, Yorks. no. 1063. Dugdale
says (Mon. Angi. iv, 275) that Alice died in 1331. If
so, the next prioress bore the same name.

2 Test. Ebor. i, 53. % Burton, wf supra.

* Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. iv, 274. Alice was prioress
in 1358 ; Conventual Leases, Yorks. no. 1080.

% Burton, wf supra, possibly the same as Gundred,
misplaced here.

128

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Margaret de Ulram, resigned 1405 *

Margaret, 1439 *7

Idonia, 1445 *8

Isabella Heslerton,® 1457, died 1499

Cecilia Dew, confirmed 27 March 1499”

Joan Tonnstale, confirmed 1507 *!

Elizabeth Whitehead,” confirmed 1521

Agnes Bradrigge, confirmed 16 February
1525 (the last prioress) *

The circular 1ath-century seal,“# 13 in, in
diameter, shows our Lady standing and crowned,
and holding a fleur de lis and a book: of the
legend only .. . . ¥ sCE M remains.

20. THE PRIORY OF ST. CLEMENT,
YORK

The priory of St. Clement was founded about
1130,' by Archbishop Thurstan, whose grants
were confirmed by the dean and chapter.’

In 1192% Archbishop Geoffrey Plantagenet
granted the priory of St. Clement to the abbey
of Godstow, but the nuns appealed to the pope,
and Alice the prioress is said to have gone to
Rome to plead their cause in person. The
archbishop excommunicated the nuns, but by the
papal decision in their favour they regained their
independent position.

Late one evening in the first year of the 14th
century certain men came to the priory gate
leading a saddled horse. Here Cecily, a nun,
met them, and, throwing off her nun’s habit, put
on another robe and rode off with them to Dar-
lington, where Gregory de Thornton was wait-
ing for her, and with him she lived for three
years or more.*

Archbishop Greenfield, writing to the prioress
on 1§ April 1310,* dealt with the case of
Joan de Saxton, one of the nuns, on whom

56 Burton, at supra.

% Burton, wt supra.

3° ‘Was prioress 1457.
no. 1088.

“© York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, fol. 165.

“ Burton, wf supra. She was prioress in 1512,
Conventual Leases, Yorks. no. 1093.

“A nun of Yedingham. York Archiepis. Reg.
Wolsey, fol. 81, admitted to Corpus Christi Guild,
York, 1523, and here she is called Isabella: Reg.
Corpus Christi Guild (Surt. Soc.), 201.

* A nun of Yedingham. York Archiepis. Reg.
Wolsey, fol. 81.

“ Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3607, Ixxv, 21.

' Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 323. Hugh, Dean of
York, one of the witnesses, died in 1138.

? Thid. 325, no. iii.

3 Ibid. no. 3; Drake, Edoracum, 248.

3a Assize R. 1107, m. 21 d.

‘ York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 774.

7 Baildon, ut supra.

Conventual Leases, Yorks.

at some time previously a severe penance had
been imposed for misbehaviour. ‘The penance
itself the archbishop mitigated, but to avoid
scandal, Joan de Saxton was not to go out of
the cloister, but was to keep convent in all
respects, and hold no conventual office. For
recreation and solace she might go into the
orchards and gardens of the monastery, accom-
panied by the nuns. ‘Twice a year, if necessary,
she might receive friends in the presence of the
prioress, or other discreet nuns, but she was to
have nothing to do with the Lady de Walleys,
and if the Lady de Walleys was then in their
house, she was to be sent away before Pentecost.
The archbishop further forbade the nuns to
have girls over twelve years of age as boarders,
and they were only to keep washerwomen and
other necessary servants in the house.

On 2 November in the same year the arch-
bishop gave permission to the nuns to receive
Isabella of Studley Roger, near Ripon, ad velum
et habitum.®

In 1316,° when the office of prioress became
vacant by the death or resignation of Custance
Basy, who had been elected in August of the
previous year, discord prevailed in the convent,
one party electing Agnes de Methelay and the
other Beatrice de Brandesby. ‘The see being
vacant, the dean and chapter appointed Agnes de
Methelay.

Archbishop Melton held a visitation of the
house in 1317,’ and on 25 January following
sent to the prioress and convent a list of in-
junctions. Many are exhortations in common
form, relating to the due observance of the
rule. The archbishop had found that the
Friars Minor of York, every alternate week during
the year, and the Friars Preachers of York,
in the same manner, for a long time had been
receiving fourteen conventual loaves. The nuns
were to show the friars the archbishop’s order,
and were to cease from supplying them with
these loaves, so long as their house was burdened
by debt, and then they were not to give the
loaves to the friars without a special leave of the
archbishop or his successors. It also appeared
that on the death of any nun of the house, the
friars aforesaid received for a whole year the full
livery of the deceased nun. This also the arch-
bishop forbade. Secular women dwelling in the
house were not to hold colloquies with the nuns,
lest evil suspicion should arise. Little girls, or
males of any age whatever, or secular women
were not to be permitted to sleep in the dor-
mitory with the nuns.

The frequent access of men and women to
the house was not to be allowed, lest evil or
scandal should arise.

In 1324°% there is again evidence of internal

6 Ibid. fol. 845.

* Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 85.
7 Ibid, Melton.

8 Thid. fol. 1624.

3 129 17

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

trouble® in the house, for the archbishop issued
a commission to inquire into the defects alleged
in St. Clement’s, and the prioress resigned.

Isabella de Stodley, who had been admitted a
nun on 2 November 1315, by permission of
Archbishop Greenfield, had been guilty of
apostasy and super /apsu carnis, besides other
excesses. She had been sent by Archbishop
Melton to Yedingham, to undergo a penance
imposed upon her, and on 30 August 1331
he directed that she was to return to St. Clement’s,
adding that if she were disobedient to the prioress
or quarrelsome with her sisters, or indulged in
blasphemy, he would transfer her to some other
house to remain there permanently.

St. Clement’s Church, which served for the
nuns, was also the church of the parish, and
on 12 July 14641! Archbishop William Booth
transferred the feast of the dedication, which
fell on St. William’s day (when the church was
deserted on account of the parishioners attending
the metropolitical church, where St. William’s
body and relics were preserved), to the Sunday
after the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul each
year. It seems from the frequent allusions to
the anchorite of St. Clement’s that it was a
permanent position formerly attached to the
church. In 1467 it was held by Alice Derby.

In 1391 Pope Boniface IX granted a re-
laxation of enjoined penance to penitents who on
the feast of St. Clement visited and gave alms
for the conservation of the Benedictine priory of
St. Clement without the walls of York. The
will of a lady, who was probably a boarder in the
house in the middle of the next century, contains
a little information of interest. Elizabeth Med-
lay, of the house of St. Clement’s in Clementhorpe,
in the suburbs of York, directed in her will dated
6 January 1470" that her body was to be buried
in the conventual church of St. Clement before
the altar of St. Katherine. To the high altar
she bequeathed her best coat, to the prioress 16d.,
and to each nun 12d., and appointed the Lady
Margaret Delaryver, the prioress, an executor.

St. Clement’s does not appear at any time to
have had more than ten or a dozen nuns, and its
revenues when the Valor Ecclesiasticus was com-
piled only show a clear annual value of
£55 115. 9d.

The nunnery was supervised by the com-
missioners on 13 June 1536,'° and suppressed on

*On 11 Aug. 1318 Archbishop Melton directed
the (rural) dean of Beverley that Johanna de Ledes,
who had apostatized from St Clement’s, York, was to
be sent back to her convent. York Archiepis. Reg,
Melton, fol. 2704.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 1874.

" Ibid. W. Booth, fol. 222.

™ York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 1004.

3 Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 373.

“ York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 1604.

8 Val:r Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 2.

31 August following. There were eight nuns
and nine servants. In the account of Leonard
Beckwith three bells in the campanile are valued
at 175.; there was also a chalice (12 02.) valued
at 445.3 a silver cup (5 oz.) valued at 16s. 8d. and
‘ij birral glasses cum reliquijs inclus’ in argento,’
valued at 5s. Drs. Layton and Legh reported
that the nuns had at St. Clement’s, as it was be-
lieved, some of the milk of the Blessed Virgin in
veneration, and that pilgrimages were made there
ad sanctam Sytham.

The report as to the payment of pensions in
6 Edward VI for the city of York is as follows :
Clementhorpe.'’—Isabell Warde [the late prioress]
£6 135. 4d. (56 years old), alive and paid ; Agnes
Snaynton 60s. (56 years), alive ; Agnes Ardyngton
46s. 8d. (60 years), alive ; AgnesSymson 46s. 6d.
(60 years), paid ; Jane Gower 40s. (50 years),
alive ; Jane Watson 40s. (three score years), behind
for one year ; Margaret Carter 40s., died 6 August
4 Edward VI; Matild’ Kilborn 40s. (60 years),
alive ; Agnes Archer 40s. (38 years) behind for
one whole year ; Dorothe Mawe 40s. (46 years),
alive, behind for a year ; Margaret Elton, ‘ not
herde of’ ; Agnes Johnson 40s. (40 years), alive ;
Jane Fairfax 345. 4d. (40 years), alive ; Elizabeth
Parker 345. 4d., ‘dyed three yeresagone’ ; Elene
Bayne 345. 4d. (30 years), alive; Agnes Asleby
345 4d. (40 years), alive.

PrioressEs OF St. CLEMENT, YORK

Alice, occurs 1192 8

Alcelina, occurs 1221 ®

Agnes, occurs 1235,” 1245

Margaret, occurs 1268 7!

Agnes de Wyten, occurs 1279,” 1280 8

Alice, occurs 1299 ™

Custance Basy, confirmed 28 August 1315 *

Agnes de Methelay, appointed 1316,7 re-
signed 1324 7

Alice de Pakenham, died 1396

Beatrice de Remington, confirmed 1396”

Margaret Holtby, resigned 1456 *°

Margaret Delaryver, occurs 1470,3! died
1489 #

Christabella Longcastre, confirmed 1489 8

Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 78, no. 85.

* Drake, Eboracum, 248.

* Feet of F. Mich. 5 Hen. III, file 16, no. 14
” Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 235.

™ Assize R, 1045, m. 44d.

” Feet of F. Trin. 52 Hen. III, file 51, no. 67.
* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 235.

*™ Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 324.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 235.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 884.
*© Thid. sed. vac. fol. 85.

7 Ibid. Melton, fol. 1625.” Ibid. sed. vac.

” Ibid. Arundel, fol.60. ™ Ibid. W. Booth, fol. 8.

* York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 1604.
* York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 614.
® Thid.

130

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Margaret Carre, elected November 1515,™4
died 1516 *

Margaret Frankelayne, appointed (lapse)
2 December 1516,*° died 1518 ”

Isabella Warde appointed (lapse) 8 November
1518 %

The 1ath-century seal,* a large vesica 3 in.
by 2in., has a full-length figure of St. Clement

HOUSES

21. THE ABBEY OF BYLAND

In 1134) twelve monks with their abbot,
Gerald, left the abbey of Furness to establish
and inhabit a daughter house at Calder, on a site
granted by Ralph Meschin. They were settled
at Calder for four years building their monastery,
when the Scots, under King David, demolished
their work and despoiled their property. They
returned to the mother house at Furness, but
were refused admittance, because Gerald refused
to resign his office of abbot or release his monks
from their vows of obedience to him. It was
urged, on the part of the Abbot and convent of
Furness, that it would be inconsistent with
monastic order and discipline for two abbots with
their separate convents to inhabit the same
monastery together. No allowance being made
for the unfortunate Abbot and monks of Calder,
who were only seeking temporary shelter in the
mother house, Gerald and his monks determined
to renounce both Furness and Calder, and seek a
new and independent site for their monastery
elsewhere.

They had but little with them when they left
Furness, only some clothes (vestes) and books in a
wagon drawn by eight oxen, and their condition
was pitiable in the extreme, but they had heard
of Archbishop Thurstan’s benevolence to the
monks who six years before had left St. Mary’s,
York, and were settled at Fountains, and they
decided to seek his kind offices. As they were
approaching Thirsk, on their way to York, they
met the steward of Gundreda widow of Nigel de
Albiniand mother of Roger de Mowbray, a youth

* York Archiepis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 13.

35 Ibid. fol. 204. % Ibid.

7 Ibid. fol. 400. 8 Ibid.

*° Cat. of Seals, B.M. 44.00, lxxv, 30.

* Thid. 4401, lxxv, 31.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 349, no. viii. ‘Incipit
Fundatio Domus Bellelandae edita 4 Philippo Abbat
tertio Domus praedictae sicut ipse audierat A predeces-
sore suo Abbate Rogero et aliis senioribus hujus
Domus.’ From the ‘ Registrum de Bellalanda’ (now
lost). See also a paper by Mr. J. R. Walbram, Assoc.
Soc. Rep. (1864), 219.

OF CISTERCIAN

the patron saint, blessing and holding a book.
The legend is:

SIGILLVM SANCTI CLEMENTIS PAPE DE EBOk.

A 13th-century seal, avesica 2} in. by 1} in.
has a figure of the patron saint. All that remains
of the legend is :

SIGILL , . . BNDTINO...

MONKS

then in wardto King Stephen, but soon to come
into possession of his vast estates. Being struck
with the miserable condition of the unfortunate
monks, he bade them go to the castle of Thirsk,
where his mistress was then residing, in order
that they might sup at her table.

Gundreda watched the approach of the monks
from an upper window. Being much edified by
their behaviour and conversation, she sheltered
them temporarily under her roof, providing for
their wants and promising them a place of abode
and permanent means of subsistence. As, how-
ever, they could not follow her about she sent
them to her uncle (or nephew) Robert de Alneto,
an ex-monk of Whitby, then living as a hermit
at Hood near Thirsk, where she provided for
them until her son Roger came of age. While
there Abbot Gerald visited Thurstan at York,
and sought his help. The archbishop wrote to
Roger de Mowbray, who, having entered into
possession of his property, granted the monks the
tenth of the victuals provided for his household,
and a conversus named Lyngulf was deputed to
follow Roger de Mowbray’s household, and make
a daily collection of the victuals which he was to
send to Hood. When, however, Roger de Mow-
bray was away at a distance, Lyngulf sold the
victuals and transmitted what he received for
them to the abbot. This was obviously incon-
venient, and in 1140 Roger de Mowbray, instead
of a tithe of his victuals, granted the monks a
cow pasture at Cambe and lands at Wildon,
Scackleton in the parish of Hovingham, as well
as the vill of Ergham.

When the monks had been a little time at
Hood and were beginning to acquire property,
fear was felt lest the Abbot of Furness should
claim a right of paternity over them. Abbot
Gerald went therefore to Savigny, and explained
why they had left Calder and how they had been
rejected by the Abbot and convent of Furness,
In a general chapter of the order, held in 1142,
a full release was granted from the jurisdiction of
the Abbot of Furness. Abbot Gerald returned
to England, but died at York on his way home.
His body was taken to Hood by his monks, and
buried there. Roger, who had been sub-cellarer

131

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

at Calder, was elected in his place. He was
master of the novices at Hood, but had only one
novice under him at the time, to whom he
was speaking concerning the observances of
the rule, when (the chronicler relates) suddenly
and without warning, all the monks surrounded
him and bore him in their arms to the high
altar of the oratory, proclaiming him as their
abbot with a loud voice in the name of the Holy
Trinity. In Easter week following he was
blessed as abbot by the archbishop at Sherburn,
on the presentation of Roger de Mowbray, who
was present at the ceremony.

When the monks had been four years at Hood
and many persons had joined them, the place be-
came too small, and in 1143 Roger de Mowbray
gave them his vill of Be/lalanda super Moram,
[Old Byland] with its church and all its appur-
tenances. Having made this grant, he caused
the monks to builda small cell by the River Rye,
not far from Rievaulx Abbey, which had been
founded twelve years before by Walter l’Espec.
Here Abbot Roger and his monks stayed for five
years. At the desire of Roger de Mowbray
Hood was given to the Augustinian priory which
he founded at Newburgh.

As Old Byland, from its nearness to Rievaulx,
was unsuitable for the new abbey, Roger de
Mowbray gave the monks in 1147 two carucates
of land near Coxwold, and the monks set to work
to clear the ground, and built a small stone
church, a cloister, and other buildings and offices.
But when Roger de Mowbray had left for Nor-
mandy troubles arose. Robert Dayville, lord
of Kilburn, greatly hindered the monks, asserting
that they had inclosed part of his vill of Kilburn.
Hugh Malbys, lord of Scawton, also harassed
them, as did Guy deBoltby. In consequence of
these difhculties Abbot Roger went in 1147 to
Savigny, where he attended the general chapter
(which gave Jervaulx as a daughter-house to
Byland). He assured Abbot Serlo and those
present that his monastery was amply endowed,
if he and his monks were allowed peaceable
possession of their property. He left before the
chapter was ended, and hastened to Roger de
Mowbray, who promised speedy and efficient help.
Fortified with letters from him to the disturbers
of the rights of the monks, he returned to Eng-
land. On Roger de Mowbray’s return a settle-
ment was effected.?

These troubles ended, new ones arose, the
Abbot of Calder asserting that Roger and his con-
vent belonged to that house, and not to Savigny.
Abbot Roger replied that had there been an
Abbot of Calder when Hood was given, there
might be some claim for Calder, but as Calder
was vacant at the time, the gift was to Savigny,
to whom he and his monks were subject. The
next yearthe Abbot of Savigny held a visitation

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 352.

of his houses in England, and the question was
referred to Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx. The
Abbot of Furness put in his claim above that of
the daughter-house of Calder, but Aelred decided
against the claims of Furness. With this, the
troubles of the monks of Byland in maintaining
their property and independence came to an end,
but Roger de Mowbray, inorder to make every-
thing sure for the future, confirmed all his gifts to
Byland before the Archbishop and chapter of
York,

The monks remained thirty years at Stocking,
and while there cleared the woods and drained
the swamps, and no doubt began the abbey church
on the site now occupied by its ruins. On the
eve of All Saints (30 October) 1177 they made
their fourth and final move to what was then
called Whiteker, but to which they conveyed the
name of their house of Bellalanda, and which has
since borne the name of Byland from it. Abbot
Roger ruled the convent for the long space of
fifty-four years, at Old Byland, Stocking and
Whiteker (Byland). He had often wished to
resign, but when he had pleaded this with
St. Bernard he was persuaded to continue in
office. At length, worn out and enfeebled by
age, he resigned, but lived nearly three years
longer as an inmate of the monastery. ‘There
seems some difficulty in accounting for the
removal from Stocking, where the monks had
built a stone church and cloister, and other offices
and structures. Possibly these were too small,
for the church is described as a small one, and it
may be that on that account they thought well to
begin a new monastery close by, on a larger
scale.

By far the most important event in the after
history of Byland must have been the ‘ battle of
Byland Abbey’ as it has been called, fought on
the high ground between the abbeys of Rievaulx
and Byland, on or about 14 October 1322, but
as to what befell Byland Abbey on that occasion
we do not know. King Edward is said by some
to have been at Byland Abbey when the news
of the discomfiture of his forces and the capture
of the Earl of Richmond by the Scots reached
him. By othersitis said that he was at Rievaulx
Abbey. At whichever of the houses he was
sojourning he fled precipitately to York, leaving a
large treasure and much silver plate behind him,
which fell into the hands of the Scots.

Burton ® gives a long list of the possessions the
abbey received from different donors.4

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 329-38.

‘Egerton MS. 2823 is a chartulary of Byland.
A large number of original charters of the abbey are
said to have been destroyed when St. Mary’s tower
at York was blown up in 1644, and others were burnt
in a bookseller’s shop at Bristol about 1860. The
British Museum possesses a number of early charters

relating to Danby, Whitby and elsewhere. Add.
Chart. 7409-32.

132

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Henry IT® took the abbey into his protection,
and granted the monks and their men the privi-
lege of being free in all cities, boroughs, markets,
fairs, bridges, and ports throughout England and
Normandy.

Of spiritualities the abbey held the church of
Old Byland, granted by their founder; a moiety
of the church of Bubwith, given in 1349 by John
de Mowbray for the good of the soul of his wife
Joan, who was buried before the high altar of the
abbey church ; and both moieties of Rillington,
Pope Clement VI on 23 January 1344 ° con-
firmed the appropriation of the church of Rilling-
ton to Byland, of their patronage, and of the value
of 30 marks according to the old taxation, but of
15 according to the new. ‘The monastery had
suffered by the incursons of the Scots, an allusion
probably to the devastation caused at the time of
the battle in 1322, besides that of other raids. As
it was a Cistercian house, exempt from episcopal
visitation, the Registers at York contain little con-
cerning the abbey of Byland beyond the elections
ot several of the abbots, and their benediction by
the archbishop. -Its internal history after Abbot
Philip’s record comes to an end with the removal
to the final site in 1177 is almost blank. From
a Subsidy Roll we learn that in 1380-1,’ besides
the abbot, there were eleven monks and three
conversi. The abbey received, it is not known
why, Letters Patent dated 30 January 1537,° to
continue, but it surrendered 30 Henry VIII, when
pensions were granted to the abbot (£50) and
twenty-three monks ; one other, John Harryson,
received no money pension guia babet vicariam de
Byland.

At the time of the Dissolution there were
seven bells, 100 fodder of lead, 516 oz. of plate.
The gross annual value is given in the Monasticon
as £295 55. 4d., and the clear income as
£238 95. 44.2 In 1527 the clear annual value
was returned as £217 135. 4d.

The return of the commissioners as to the
payments of grants to ex-religious in the North
Riding, dated 20 February 1553," records that
John Alanbrige, the late abbot, appeared with his
patent and said that his pension of £50 was be-
hind one year at Pentecost then last past ; Robert
Baynton (£10) ‘appeared not,’ nor did Richard
Pereson (£/5 6s. 84.) ; Robert Leafe had died, five
others appeared with their patents, as did also
Thomas Metcalf, who appeared with his patent
for £5 6s. 8d., but the commissioners say he
“did not axe it.’

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 343.

° Cal. of Papal Letters, iii, 114.

7 Subs. R. 63, no. 12.

® Burton, Mon. Ebor. 339. As the clear annual value
was above £200, it did not come within the scope of
the earlier Act, and the matter is a little puzzling.

® Ibid.

” Subs. R. 64, no. 303.

0 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 24.

ABBOTS OF BYLAND

Gerard, died 1142 ¥

Roger, occurs 1146,! resigned 1196

Philip, succeeded 1196 ™*

Hamo, occurs 1199-1200

Herbert, occurs 1209 '°

Robert, occurs 1223,” 12308

Henry de Bathersby, occurs 1231,” 1268 ”

Sis de eee oceurs 1272," 12383
omas, occurs 1285

John, elected 1288,” occurs 1293

Henry, elected 1300,” occurs 1302 8

William, elected 1302”

Adam, occurs 1310," 1315

ee . So ee ae rio," 1303"

ohn, elected 131

John, elected 1322 *4

John de Miton, occurs 1332 ®

Walter de Diceford afas de Jarum,® elected
1334,° occurs 1342 7

(hie eae 1349 *8

William, elected 1357 *

et de Helmeslay,*° elected 1370, occurs
1381

™ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 350.

"a Tbid. 572, no. v: he also occurs as contem-
porary with Archbishop Henry Murdac (1147-54) :
Egerton MS. 2823, fol. 48.

8 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. 353.

“ Ibid. 354.

Yorks. Fines, Fobn (Surt. Soc.), 2.

6 Thid. 160.

” Feet of F. file 17, no. 8 (8-10 Hen. III).

18 Ibid. file 22, no. 23 (12-14 Hen. III).

” Occurs as Henry in a number of Feet of F. from
15 to 39 Hen. III: H. de Bathersby is said in 1292
to have been abbot forty years before : Assize R. 1100,
m. 84.

* Egerton MS, 2823, fol. 55.

" Tbid. fol. 104: Agreement between Adam de
Hustwayt, Abbot of Byland, and William de Ellerbek,
Abbot of Rievaulx (1268-85).

” Feet of F. file 54, no. 27: Add. Chart. 20546.

8 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 27.

™* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 34.4.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 304.

7 Pat. 21 Edw. I, m. 6.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 234.

*® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 345.

® Tid.

2 Egerton MS. 2823, fol. 80.

5 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 345.

* York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 91d.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 27.

*° York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 2274.

* Tbid. slip between fol. 238 and fol. 239.

% Ibid. fol. 2575,

%a Egerton MS. 2823, fol. 67.

% Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 345.

7 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 27.

*° York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 166

* Tbid. Thoresby, on slip at fol. 175.

” Ibid. fol. 190.

“ Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 27.

133

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Geoffrey de Pykering, occurs 1 “ 1400 #8
William (Helperby).® occurs en i
Thomas Kylburn, occurs 1479 *

John Ferlington, elected 1499 *

John Ledes ahzs Alanbridge, elected 1525

The little circular 13th-century seal,‘ 3 in. in
diameter, has a half-length figure of our Lady
with the Child, and the legend :—

be ave [maria]

An abbot sealed c. 1186 with a little vesica,®
Id in. by rin., showing the standing figure of
himself, holding staff and book. Abbot Walter (?)
in or about 1210 used a seal! of similar design.
Both of these have the legend :—

SIGILLUM ABBATIS DE BELLELANDA

Another abbot’s seal,®? used in 1186, has a
design of an arm and hand holding a crozier,
with the legend :—

Dt SIGILLVM ABBATIS BELLELANDE

22. FOUNTAINS ABBEY

At the time that the work of St. Bernard had
begun to make itself felt in England, when the
abbey of Rievaulx had just been founded,’ the
great Benedictine house of St. Mary in York,
under the rule of its third abbot, Geoffrey, was
somewhat lax as to its internal discipline,? and as
the reports reached the brethren of the more
rigorous form of monasticism being observed in
such places as Rievaulx, the monks of St. Mary
began to long for a stricter rule. “The one first
influenced seems to have been the sacrist, Richard,
and others soon joined him. ‘The prior of the
house, also named Richard, shared their views, and
before long became the leader of the dissatisfied
group of thirteen brethren.? The abbot remon-
strated, but the thirteen, led by the prior, made their
wishes known to Archbishop Thurstan, who
at once sympathized withthem. Thearchbishop

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Waldby, fol. 6.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 7.

“ The surname Helperby occurs on a fragment of
an antiphoner shown to Mr. W. H. St. John Hope on
1 July 1905, and then belonging to Mr. F. C. Eales.

“ Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 27.

“© Occurs on the fragment of the antiphoner above
mentioned as abbot on feast of Assumption 1479, when
John Ferlington, afterwards abbot, entered the cell of
the novices.

7 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 345. * Tbid.

” Cat. of Seals, B.M., 2818 ; Add. Chart. 20546.

5° Ibid. 2819 ; Cott. Chart. v, 13.

51 Ibid. 2821 ; xlix, 14.

3? Thid. 2822 ; Ixxiv, 27.

1In 1131 (Surt. Soc. Publ. \xvii, 116).

8 Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, p. xxvi.

? Thid.

aid a visit to the abbey on 9 October 1132,
sonnei by Dean Hugh “and many others.
On their arrival at the chapter-house they were
refused admission and a tumultuous scene followed,
the archbishop placing the abbey under an
interdict and himself and friends having to seek
refuge in the church. When they left they
were accompanied by the thirteen malcontent
monks ; Richard the prior,® Gervase the sub-
prior,® Richard the sacrist,’ Walter ® the almoner,?
Robert the precentor,!® Ranulph,” Alexan-
der (*),!? Geoffrey, Gregory, Thomas, Hamo,
Gamel and Ralph, and they were joined by
Robert, a monk of Whitby.’®

For nearly three months these brethren were
the guests of the archbishop. But during that
time the abbot did his utmost by force, threat,
entreaty and other means to persuade them to
return. Two of them yielded, Gervase and
Ralph, but the former rejoined the group, whilst _
the latter ‘made terms with his flesh, and his
belly clave to the ground.’ These thirteen
brethren—the twelve and Robert of Whitby—
spent Christmas Day with the archbishop at
Ripon, and the following day he led them along
the valley of the Skell to a spot 3 miles from
Ripon, which with land adjacent he gave to
them as the site of their future monastery.
Richard the prior was elected the first abbot of
the abbey of Fountains,’® on the morrow of the
Feast of the Nativity, 1132.”

They formally decided to adopt the Cistercian
rule, and put themselves in communication with
St. Bernard,!* explaining their circumstances and
origin and asking that they might be admitted to
the order. St. Bernard replied expressing his
delight at their decision, and wrote also to the
archbishop, extolling him for his goodness to the
suffering monks.!® He dispatched one of his
monks, Geoffrey, to initiate them into the new
rule, who, on his return to Clairvaux, gave so
glowing a report ™ of all he had witnessed in the
valley of the Skell that the little society was at

‘He afterwards retired to Fountains, where he
died.

5 First Abbot of Fountains.

® Afterwards Abbot of Louth Park.

7 Second Abbot of Fountains.

5 Waltheof is given in Surt. Soc. Publ. xiii, p. xxv.

® Abbot of Kirkstead.

" Abbot of Lisa (ibid. p. xlvii).

” First Abbot of Kirkstall.

* Abbot of Haverholme (Surt. Soc. Pud/., xlii, p. xli).

M Ibid. p. xxxili.

% Saint Robert of Newminster, of which he was
abbot.

The dedication was St. Mary, the ordinary
appellation being Fountains.

" Surt. Soc. Publ. xiii, p. xxxiv.

™ Raine, St. Mary’s Abbey, 51.

® Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, p. xxxv.

Raine, St. Mary’s Abbey, 52.

134

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

once augmented by the addition of seven clerks
and ten novices,?4

Great suffering lay before the infant commu-
nity, however. A famine arose, and so scarce
was food that they had to cook for themselves
herbs and leaves, and the famous elm under
which they sheltered ‘conferred on them a two-
fold blessing, affording protection in winter and
providing foodin summer.’ *? But after two years
of this privation, the brethren felt that they must
seek relief, and the abbot repaired to St. Bernard,
asking that he and his community might be re-
ceived at Clairvaux. To this request the saint
acceded, one of the Clairvaux granges being destined
for their use.*? But just at this time, during Abbot
Richard’s absence, the Dean of York, Hugh,
resigned his deanery and retired to Fountains,
carrying with him his great wealth, and a
collection of scriptural works, and the contem-
plated migration to France was abandoned.”®

The charter of foundation, which still exists
at Studley, is undated, but as William the dean
was a witness,” it was not drawn up, evidently,
until Hugh the dean had retired to the abbey.
Before Fountains reached her majority *” she was
the mother abbey of seven Cistercian establish-
ments—Newminster,”® founded 1138; Kirk-
stead,” 1139 ; Woburn,” 1145; Lisa, 1146 ;
Vaudey,? 1147; Kirkstall,®? 1147 ; and Meaux,*
1150. Thirteen was the regulation number of
monks, according to the Cistercian Consuetudines,
for commencing a new abbey of that order, and
these various emigrations from the parent house
would be a drain upon the monks ; but the abbey
of Fountains suffered no diminution of vigour,
and with the passage of the years the supply of
brethren seemed to increase. In 1147 there was
a great contention about William Fitz Herbert’s
deposition from the northern primacy. The
Cistercians had opposed his election, and the
Abbot of Fountains, Murdac, led the opposition.
When William was suspended his partisans
rushed to Fountains to seize the abbot, but
though he was in the church, prostrate in adora-
tion before the altar, he was missed ; the church
was set on fire, and the abbey sacked.#* Abbot
Murdac became archbishop in William’s stead,
and the fabric rose ‘far more beautiful than it

| Surt. Soc. Publ. xiii, p. xxxvi. Burton in Mon.
Ebor, 142, says ‘ten priests and laymen.’

? Hospitium in hyeme, in aestate pulmentum (Surt. Soc.
Publ. xiii, 49).

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 142.

* Drake, Eboracum (small ed.), v, 158.

* Surt. Soc. Publ. xiii, p. xxxvil.

7 Fasti Ebor, 214. 8 Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, 58.

” Ibid. pp. xl, xli. — *° Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xv, 273.

5! In Norway, Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, 89. — Ibid. 93.

§ Burton, Mon. Ebor. 287.

Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, 94. Meaux was ‘novissima
filiarum quas genuit mater nostra, et cessavit iterum
parere” (Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 302).

8 Fasti Ebor. 216.

% Ibid. 156.

had been before.’ ** Before the end of the
century the conventual buildings were well
advanced, and in 1204 Abbot John of York
began the work of enlarging the church east-
wards. The church was finished in 1245 by
Abbot John de Cantia,*” who built and finished
the nine altars, the cloister, infirmary, pavement,
and guest-house for poor and rich.

Near the end of the 12th century, during an
outbreak of the plague, the poor crowded to
the abbey in such numbers that the ordinary
accommodation was inadequate, and improvised
tents were fitted up. Nurses and priests were
provided for their temporal and spiritual needs,
and whilst in many places ordinary Christian
burial was dispensed with, at Fountains those
who succumbed to the plague were buried with
the full rites of the Church.*?

During the 13th and 14th centuries, but
specially during the 13th, there was scarcely a
year that was not characterized by some con-
siderable grant or donation to the abbot and
convent. A long list, consisting of 61 folio
pages, of these various gifts is supplied by
Dr. Burton.*®

But, notwithstanding all these riches lavished
upon the abbey, there was still need for economy
and care, and towards the end of the 13th cen-
tury the monks were found to be in great poverty,
This was partly due to the great expenses that
had been incurred in the costly building,*’ and
partly because of internal laxity,*® the archbishop
at that time writing to the Cistercian houses in
England that the monks at Fountains had
become the diversion of all men.*

In their financial troubles the convent, it
seems, had gone for relief to the Jews, and in
1274 we find Philip de Wylgheby appointed
abbey custodian because the house was in debt
to the king, by reason of a loan in the king’s
Jewry, and also owing money to divers creditors.‘*
In the same year, on 9 November, a grant was
made to Anthony Bek, clerk of the household,
of all debts, &c., wherein the abbot and convent
are bound to Jews.” On 24 June 1275 Edward I
acquitted the abbey of £900 owed by them to
Joces and Bonamies, Jews of York, which the
king gave to Antony Bek, to whom the money
had been paid by the abbot and convent.4® The
debt on the abbey had been £6,373, but in
1290 this liability had been reduced to £1,293."
In the following year, 1291, John de Berewin,

°° Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xv, 276.
” Lawton, Relig. Houses, 55; Burton, Mon. Ebor.
142,

38 Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, 136. * Thid. 61.
© Mon. Ebor. 148-209.
“ Ibid. 142. ® bid.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 98.

“ Pat. 2 Edw. I, m. 7. “ Tbid. m. 2.
“ Ibid. 3 Edw. I, m. 17.

" Surt. Soc. Publ. \xvii, p. vi.

135

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

king’s clerk, was appointed by Edward I to the
custody of the abbey, to apply the revenues to
‘the relief of the impoverished condition into
which it had fallen.’ 4#® And that no additional
debt might be incurred, ‘no sheriff, bailiff or
other minister or other person whatsoever was to
lodge in the abbey or its granges during the said
custody.’*9 The monks suffered considerably
through the invasions of the Scots, so much
so that on 25 November 1319 the king exempted
them from taxation.”

In the year 1317 some of the abbey granges
were in a ruinous condition, and frequent
invasions were made by the Scots. Edward III
therefore in 1327 issued a mandate to the abbot
ordering him and other abbots to stay at home
and give their attention to the custody of their
respective abbeys, inasmuch as the Scots, ‘our
foes and rebels,’ were making attacks on the
kingdom, ‘ perpetrating murders, robberies, fires,
and other inhuman evils,’ *

In 1344 certain ‘satellites of Satan, unmindful
of their salvation,’ had irreverently invaded the
granges, manors, and other properties of the
abbey, and on 26 August the chapter of York
in the dean’s absence issued a mandate to excom
municate all such felonious intruders into the
monastic possessions.°#

In the year 1363, a petition sent to the abbey
of Clairvaux, asking that the brethren at
Fountains might convert many of their ruined
granges into ‘vills’ and farm them out to secular
persons, was granted. "These granges, now
perished, burnt and reduced to nothing’ by the
‘wars of the Scotch and English,’ were at
Aldborough, Sleningford, Sutton, Cowton,
Cayton, Bramley, Bradley, Kilnsea, and Thorpe.*

On the death of Abbot Robert Burley, in 1410,
Roger Frank, one of the monks, was appointed
on 30 July as his successor. There was a
great disturbance in consequence, Frank being
expelled and John Ripon® elected abbot.
Ripon petitioned Parliament in 1414 that the
expelled abbot should be made to restore certain
properties of great value which he had appro-
priated. But he was informed that sufficient
remedy was to be obtained from the common

8 Pat. 19 Edw. I, m. 13. ® Tbid.

59 So much damage was done by destruction, fire,
and robbery that the whole communa of the abbey did
not suffice for the daily sustentation of the brethren.
York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 129 (under date
26 July 1318).

51 Rymer, Foedera, ili, 802.

59 Surt. Soc. Publ. \xvil, p. vil.

§8 Scotch R. 1 Edw. III, m. 3 d.

54 Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, 199, 200.

8 Tbid. 203, 204, quoting the original licence at
Studley Royal.

8° [bid. xvii, p. vil ; York Archiepis. Reg. Bowett,
fol. 265.

§7 Abbot of Meaux : Surt. Soc. Publ, xlii, 211.

law. Then Frank petitioned Parliament asking
for restoration to his abbacy, declaring that Ripon
had been appointed by a bull purchased from the
pope by means of which he himself had been
ousted.°® In the end the king referred the matter
to his ambassadors at the council of Constance,
but their decision is not known, though Frank
was certainly not restored, Ripon retaining the
abbacy till his death in 1434. Sometime
(1410-15) during the great papal schism the
anti-pope John XXIII granted an indult to the
Abbot John and his successors at Fountains to
use the mitre and ring and pastoral staff and all
other episcopal insignia, and to give in the monas-
tery and in the churches of its daughter monas-
teries, &c., solemn benediction after mass, vespers
and matins, provided that no bishop or papal
legate were then present ; to consecrate altars,
vessels, chalices, corporals, &c.; to promote
monks of the order to all minor orders, &c., to
rehabilitate the monks, &c. ‘This indult, how-
ever, was annulled on 5 May 1428 by Pope
Martin V.% But the privilege must have been
renewed subsequently, for certainly the Abbots
of Fountains wore the mitre, and in the inven-
tory of church goods made just before the
Dissolution the mitre figures more than once.
One mitre had ‘edges of silver and gilt and set
with round pieces of silver, white like pearl, and
flower’d of silver, and gilt in midward.’ It
weighed 12 oz. and was valued at £2 125.
Another mitre was of silver gilt and set with
pearl and stone. Its weight was 700z. and it
was valued at £15 35. 4d. The pastoral staff
and ring and the other ‘episcopal insignia’ are
also found in the inventory,“ and are clear
evidence that the head of Fountains, in later
times at all events, was a ‘mitred abbot.’

In 1443 Sir John Neville was charged before
the Privy Council, on pain of £1,000, to bring
the men who had been lately making a riot at
the abbey. He pleaded ignorance of the parties,
but promised to have them brought, and he was
charged to keep the peace with regard to the
house, ‘so that by him, nother by his, nother by
their abettement, nother procuring, any harme
in body, nother in goods, be done to the saide
Abbot, convent, nother to their servantz, nother
welwillers.’* A commission was issued the
next year by Archbishop Kemp against certain
anonymous ‘sons of iniquity’ who had infringed
the liberties of the house ; they were to be warned

that within three months they must make resti-
tution under pain of the greater excommuni-
cation.

Thid. 212.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 144.

? Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, 222, 223.
* [bid. 223-5.

136

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

William Thirsk, who was at the head
of the house in 1526," was evidently not a
great success. About 1530 the Earl of North-
umberland wrote through Thomas Arundel to
Cardinal Wolsey complaining of his bad rule,
and suggesting, with the evident approval of the
brethren, that if ‘matter of deprivation’ could
be found, he should be removed from the abbacy
anda new election be made.®® Thirsk, it appears,
was visitor-general of the Cistercian houses, and
when the Abbot of Rievaulx was deposed, the
king asked Thirsk to confirm the act. He
hesitated to undertake this and certain other
contingent matters,” and when afterwards he
took part in the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace,’ he was
tried and found guilty and was hanged at Tyburn
in 1537. Thirsk had resigned the abbacy on
20 January 1536 to Legh and Layton, who
accused him of incontinence and theft and
termed him an idiot, but promised him a pension
of 100 marks. After his enforced resigna-
tion he retired to the abbey of Rievaulx and
‘appears to have been partly persuaded to join the
Pilgrimage’ by hopes of regaining his abbacy.®

When the religious houses were visited, Foun-
tains of course was easily seen to be among
those not to be dissolved in the first instance.
The Dean of York and Edward the Abbot of
Rievaulx made an inventory of the abbey plate,
goods, &c., which is given in full by Burton”
and the Surtees Society’s publication.”7 The
total value of the plate was over £900, that in
the church alone being valued at {519 155. $d.
The number of cattle of various kinds is also
given. Of horned cattle there were 2,356, of
sheep 1,326, horses 86, swine 79. The total
annual revenue from various rents, &c., at this
time was £1,239 65. 33d., the outgoing
£123 8s. 13d. and the clear remainder
J 1,115 18% 2d,"

The surrender of the abbey was made on
26 November 15397 by Abbot Marmaduke
Bradley, the prior, and thirty brethren,” all priests.
On 28 November pensions were assigned to the
abbot (£100), prior (£8) and monks (£5 to
LG 135. a0)"

It was intended that the revenues of Fountains
should be applied to the foundation of a bishop-
ric of Fountains to include the archdeaconry of

* Dugdale, Mon. Ang. v, 288.

® Anite 4 Nov. 1530, the date of Wolsey’s arrest.

Surt. Soc. Publ. xiii, 252. * Ibid. 260.

8 7. and P. Hen. VIII, x, 137.

6 Ibid. xiil (2), 500. ” Mon. Ebor. 143-7.

" Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, 288-95.

” Burton, Mon. Ebor. 146, 147.

% Surt. Soc. Publ. \xvii, p. x.

™ The number of monks varied. In 1380-1 the
abbot was taxed at 1os. 7$¢., thirty-three monks at
3s. 4d. each, and ten conversi at 15. each (Subs. R. 63,
no. 12).

7° Mon. Angl. v, 313.

Richmond with jurisdiction over Lancashire. A
draft of the scheme,’® which embraced a bishop,
dean, six prebendaries, and six minor canons,
besides choristersand masters of the grammar and
song schools and other contemplated officers and
charges, estimated the total cost at £589 6s. 8d.
Allowances were also made for tenths and first-
fruits, making the total £669 135. 9d. This,
together with the amount of pensions,
£277 6s. 8d., would nearly have exhausted the
“clear remainder’ of the abbey revenues, which
was £998 6s. 84d.” But the scheme was not
consummated.

Axssots oF Fountains 78

Richard, first abbot,’? elected
1139 %

1132, died

Richard, succeeded 1139, died 1143 ™

Henry Murdac, succeeded 1143, died 1153”

Maurice, succeeded 1146, resigned

Thorold,® succeeded 1146, resigned *

Richard,® died 1170

Robert de Pipewell,®* succeeded 1170, died
II

Willign,®” died 1190

Ralph Haget,®* died 1203

John de Eboraco,® elected 1203, died 1209

John Pherd,* Bishop of Ely 1220

John de Cancia, succeeded 1220, died 1247

Stephen de Eston,” occurs 1251-2, died 1252

William de Allerton, occurs 1256, died 1258

Adam, died 1259

Alexander, died 1265

Reginald, occurs 1268-9, died 1274

Peter Aling, elected 1275, resigned 1279

7% Aug. Off. P. xxiv, fol. 77.

7 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 312.

78 This list is taken from Baildon’s Mon. Notes except
where otherwise specified.

79 Surt. Soc. Publ. xlli, 130.

5 Buried at Rome (ibid.). 8! Thid.

% Apparently held the primacy and abbacy con-
jointly.

8° Maurice and Thorold were appointed by Arch-
bishop Murdac, and in the ‘ President’s Book’ are not.
called fourth and fifth abbots. Richard is called fourth
abbot.

% Thorold came from Rievaulx, to which he re-
turned after his resignation.

* Richard, like Maurice and Thorold, until 1153
ruled the abbey ‘under the Archbishop.’

* Formerly Abbot of Pipewell.

* Formerly canon of Guisborough and Abbot of
Newminster.

* Originally a soldier, Abbot of Kirkstall 1182-90.

* < President’s Bk.’ Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, 154.

° Died 14 June 1209 (Sart. Soc. Publ. xlii, 133).
Formerly Abbot of Louth Park.

® Called ‘Johannes Elien’ in President’s Bk.

Formerly cellarer of Fountains, afterwards Abbot
of Sawley and then Abbot of Newminster.

8 < Cessavit aut depositus fuit Petrus’ (Surt. Soc. Publ.
xlii, 139).

2 137 18

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Nicholas, elected 1279, died 1279
Adam,” elected 1280, died 1284
Henry de Otley, elected 1284, died 1289 (?)
Robert Thornton, occurs 1289," died 1306
Robert Bisshopton, occurs 1307,°* died 1310

William Rigton, succeeded 1311,°° resigned
1316

Walter de Cokewold, occurs 1316,” resigned
1336

Robert Copgrave, occurs 1336,° 1342,°”” died
1346

Robert Monkton, occurs 1346, died 1369

William Gower, succeeded 1369,” resigned
1383

Robert Burley, succeeded 1383, died 1410

Roger Frank, succeeded 1410, expelled

John Ripon, occurs 1413, died 1434

Thomas Paslew, succeeded 1435,”
1442

John Martin, succeeded 1442, died 1442

John Greenwell, occurs 1444, 1471
(5 February)

Thomas Swynton,’
1478

John Darneton, succeeded 1478

Marmaduke Huby,’ occurs 1494, 1516

* « Adam Ravenswath’ (Surt. Soc. Pub/. xii, 140).

* Ibid. ; Cal. Pat. 1281-92, p. 319.

%a Thid. 1301-7, p. 547.

*° He was blessed in the sixth year of Archbishop
Greenfield’s pontificate, which seems to point to 1310
as the date of his appointment (York Archiepis. Reg.
Greenfield, a slip between fol. 52 and 53), but the
President’s Book says he was made abbot 6 Apr. 1311
(Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, 141).

% The Dean and chapter of York asked R. the
Bishop of Durham, the primacy being then vacant, to
bless Walter de Cokewold, Abbot of Fountains, in
some church or chapel in York diocese (York
Archiepis. Reg. sede vac. fol. 84).

874 Duchy of Lanc. Misc. Bks. vii, 1.

> Year Bk. 16 Edw. III (Rolls Ser.), 283. The
plea quoted gives Adam as abbot in 1290, followed by
Robert, Hugh, and William, temp. Edw. I, and
Walter, temp. Edw. II. It seems impossible to
reconcile this succession with our list.

°° He was blessed, 25 Nov. 1369, in the chapel at
Bishopthorpe (York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol.
2930).

78 ae was blind in his old age and died in
1390 (Sart. Soc. Publ. xlil, 145). 100 Tbid.

1 On 26 Mar. 1435 the Bishop of Dromore was
commissioned to bless Thomas Passelew, Abbot of
Fountains and receive his oath of obedience; York
Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 392 d.

10? Oath of obedience, 14 Sept. 1442 (ibid. fol. 45).

108 Called Thomas Wynston in York Archiepis. Reg.
Alex. Nevill, fol. 1364, but in 1478 he is called

Thomas Swynton (ibid. Booth, fol. 87), as he is in
1476 ; Cal. Pat. 1467-77, p. 602.

104 He was cellarer when he was unanimously elected
(Surt. Soc. Publ. xlii, 150 n.).

165 In his time was built the noble tower still
remaining. He was ‘made Abbot’ in 1494 (ibid.
230n.), York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 83.

resigned

% occurs 1471, resigned

William Thirsk, occurs 1 526,’ hanged 1537
Marmaduke Bradley, occurs 1537, last abbot.

The seal 7 of an abbot of the beginning of
the 13th century is a vesica, 1S in. by 1 in, lt
has a figure of the abbot standing and holding
staff and book, with the legend—

SIGILLVM ABBA . .. « ONTANIS
The 16th-century seal °° of the court is circu-

lar, $ in. in diameter, with a design of our Lady
holding the Child. The legend is—

bh CVRIA B, MARIE DE FONTIBYS

23. THE ABBEY OF JERVAULX

The story of the origin and foundation of the
abbey of Jervaulx is told at great length in the
lost Register of Byland Abbey, quoted in the
Monasticon.| ‘The writer records that a certain
knight, Akarius Fitz Bardolph, gave to a monk
of Savigny, Peter de Quinciaco by name, and
other monks of that house who were for some
reason then residing in the neighbourhood, part
of his land at Fors, in Wensleydale, where they
might found an abbey. How these monks
came to be in those parts is not explained,
but it seems not unlikely that they were sojourn-
ing, for some reason or other, at the court of
Alan, Earl of Richmond. The lands which
Fitz Bardolph gave them, and other grants,
made or to be made, Alan as his over-lord con-
firmed.

Alan instructed Peter to inform him when
the first building was to be erected, that he
might be present. All being ready, Peter
sought the earl as he had been told to do, and
the latter, coming to the place where the first
building was to be raised, summoned by name
four or five of the knights who had accompanied
him, and said jocundo vultu quasi in ludendo, ‘We
all have great lands and possessions, now there-
fore let us help with our own hands and build
this house in the name of Our Lord, and let
each of us give land, or revenue, in perpetual
alms for the maintenance of the part which each
shall have raised.” Some readily assented, but
others refused, except conditionally. In this
way the first house of wood was built in 1 145.

Soon after this Earl Alan, visiting Savigny,

informed the abbot that Brother Peter and the

“6A commission was given, 22 Oct.
Matthew, Bishop of Calcedon,
Thriske, Abbot of Fountains.
Wolsey, fol. 84.)

"! Cat. of Seah, B.M. 3170 ; lxxiv,

ee Ibid. 3169 ; D.C.H. 35.

Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 569-74.

ibicaeg

1526, to
to bless Bro. William
(York Archiepis. Reg.

46.

138

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

other monks had begun an abbey in his lordship,
not far from his castle of Richmond, and he
gave the abbey, then it is said rather planned
than in being, to the abbot, who accepted it but
unwillingly, not being favourably disposed to the
scheme.

Peter, the zealous promoter of this new p/an-
tatio, wrote to the Abbot of Savigny asking him
to send an abbot and convent to inhabit the new
monastery. The Abbot of Savigny, however,
remembering the dangers, labours and injury
which his monks had sustained who had been
sent to different places in England to construct
abbeys, wrote to Brother Peter that he had acted
most foolishly in beginning the abbey without
the advice of the house of Savigny.?

In 11464 Abbot Roger of Byland set out to
attend a general chapter at Savigny, and Brother
Peter begged him to take a letter to the abbot
and bring back a reply.

The matter was brought before the chapter
general, at which, besides Abbot Roger, the only
abbots present from England were those of
Quarr and Neath, and the question was discussed
_ by the fifteen abbots present.

Eventually the Abbot of Savigny, to whom
Jervaulx had been confirmed by Conan, Alan’s
heir and successor, decided not to send an abbot
and convent of monks from Savigny. The
chapter general decided, however, that the new
abbey should be subjected to Byland, the nearest
house of the order to it. As Abbot Roger
could not stay longer, he constituted the Abbot
of Quarr his proxy. When the chapter was
over, Serlo, the Abbot of Savigny, delivered to
the Abbot of Quarr the charter of the gift of
Jervaulx to Byland, and enjoined the abbot
to visit all the order in England that year,
and if he found that a convent could be main-
tained at Fors, then he was to deliver the charter
to the Abbot of Byland and put him in full
possession of Fors. If, however, he found that
Fors could not maintain a convent, then he
was to retain the charter and tell Brother Peter
to take good care of Fors and develop it for the
proper use of the Abbey of Savigny. At the
following Easter the Abbot of Quarr visited By-
land, accompanied by a monk of Savigny named
Matthew. When the formal visitation was
over, Brother Peter conducted the Abbots of
Quarr and Byland to Jervaulx, and there the
Abbot of Quarr gave Brother Peter the sealed
letters of the Abbot of Savigny and told him
that the new p/antatio had been committed to
Byland.

Brother Peter addressed the Abbot of Quarr,
telling him that he and his two associates to
whom the site had been given in the first in-
stance had toiled there much, and that, blessed
be the Most High, they had 5 ploughs at work,

5 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. no. v. ‘Ibid.

40 cows with their young, 16 mares with their
foals given by the earl, 5 sows with their young,
300 sheep, and 30 skins in tan, and wax and oil
for two years, and they were confident that
they could find bread, ale, cheese and butter for
the first year, and they believed that an abbot
and convent could begin with what there was in
the place till it should please God to provide
more bountifully for them. He added that if
the Abbot of Byland promised to send an abbot
and convent with perpetual succession, they
would hand over the place with all its substance.
This the Abbot of Byland promised to do.
Upon this the charter of Serlo was read by the
Abbot of Quarr.

Brother Peter then handed all over to the
Abbot of Byland, and with his two fellow monks
and a conversus made professiontohim. Another
conversus refused this profession and returned to
Savigny with the monk Matthew. The Abbot
of Byland then entrusted Brother Peter with the
care of the place, which he often visited, and he
appointed one monk to the office of the hostelry
and a conversus as tanner.

On his way to a general chapter of the Cister-
cian order in 1147 Abbot Roger of Byland
went to Savigny, and was told that if he wished
to fulfil his engagement with the Abbot of Quarr
and Peter de Quinciaco no obstacle would be
raised. He then promised that shortly after his
return home he would fulfil his engagement.

On the third day of the general chapter at
Citeaux, the Abbot of Citeaux, according to
rule, ordered that the names of the abbeys
founded during the year should be entered in the
Cistercian Table, and at the suggestion of St.
Bernard and of the Abbot of Savigny, the name
of the abbey of Jervaulx was inscribed in the
table of Citeaux. When Abbot Roger returned
home to Byland he ordered the cellarer to convey
the better bell of the parish church of Old
Byland, on a wagon, to the abbey of Jervaulx.
This was speedily done, and after the feast of
the Circumcision (1 January) Abbot Roger went
to Jervaulx and stayed there till the Purification
(2 February), arranging the external and in-
ternal affairs of the place. Then, leaving, he
ordered Brother Peter and his two associate
monks to be at Byland on the first Sunday
in Lent. When that Sunday arrived, Abbot
Roger said that he had delayed completing
his promise in order to do it better and more
securely, and now invoking the divine grace
he ordained and constituted in the name of
the several persons of the Holy Trinity
Brother John de Kinstan abbot. Upon this
nomination all rose at once, and lifting John de
Kinstan on their arms, bore him to the high
altar, exclaiming ‘ Tu es abbas Jorevallis” John de
Kinstan was one of those who left Calder with
Abbot Gerald and began the Abbey of By-
land.

139

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

‘Then Abbot Roger named Brother Peter and
his two associates and nine monks of the convent,
absolving them from their profession to him
that they might make profession to Abbot John,
and on Wednesday, 8 March 1150,° Abbot John
with the twelve monks set out for Jervaulx.
Abbot John was received by Akarius the founder
and manynobles. He appointed Brother Edwald
his prior and Brother Peter cellarer.

Although throughout this account the new
foundation has been generally spoken of as that
of Jervaulx, it must be borne in mind that it
was the earlier house at Fors, some 16 miles
higher up the valley than the subsequent site of
Jervaulx Abbey, that is alluded to. It was
afterwards called Vallis Grangia, and is still
known as Dale Grange. For four years the
new abbot and convent lived there, but in the
fifth year such heavy rains fell in those parts at
Michaelmas that, when the monks ought to have
been harvesting, all their seeds perished.

In consequence of this, Abbot Roger sent
them five measures (skeppas) of grain for sowing,
and they bought more elsewhere. Still they
were in need, and seeing the sterility of the
land, which on account of rain and intemperate
atmosphere would not mature their crops, they
often contemplated returning to their mother
house, but were prevented by fear of the scorn
of the men, who would say ‘ These monks began
to build, but were not able to finish. When
Abbot Roger came, according to custom, to
visit them, he found Abbot John and his convent
in dire distress for the reasons mentioned. ‘They
had spent that year more than all the money
they had received for wool and beasts, in buying
corn. Abbot Roger, therefore, to relieve their
necessity, sent them again five measures (skeppas)
of grain, and ten of malt, against the autumn.
Moreover, with the assent of the convent of
Byland, he gave them 10 bovates of land in
Ellington.

Peter, the cellarer, urged against returning to
Byland and went to Earl Alan in Brittany, where
he showed the earl, with tears, their desolation,
so that the latter wrote to Abbot John not to
leave Jervaulx, and that he would assist them
well on his return to Richmond. Alan, how-
ever, was a long time in coming to England, and
as Abbot John had nothing with which to main-
tain his convent for a whole year, he sent five
of his monks to board at Byland and three to
Furness. Nearly two years elapsed before Earl
Alan came to Richmond, when Abbot John
showed him the grave defects from which the
convents were suffering, and asked his help,
because if he did not afford them assistance the
convent would have to leave the sterile district.

° This and the previous nomination and election of
John de Kinstan as abbot give the year 1150 as that
of the formal inauguration of the new abbey, and the
commencement of the abbacy of John de Kinstan.

Alan replied that he would speak to his steward
and others as to the complaint, and would do
what they advised. He took Peter the cellarer
with him and granted him a large pasturage in
Wensleydale. Conan, his son, as the site ap-
peared to him useless and insufficient for build-
ing the abbey, gave to Abbot John his waste
and uncultivated land in East Witton, and in
1156 Abbot John and the convent moved from
Fors to the site in East Witton.

The writer having related all these incidents
as to the origin of Jervaulx Abbey lapses into
the marvellous, but it is a very pretty story that
he tells. He says that after Abbot John and
his monks had set out from Byland, as they spent
the night in a village, the name of which he
had often heard but had forgotten, Abbot John
had a dream or vision. He seemed to be in
the cloister at Byland, and Abbot Roger had
directed him to set out with a number of monks
for a far-off place, there to receive orders (ad
ordines recipiendos), and as he was passing out he
beheld in the middle of the cloister a most
noble lady, richly clothed, whose beauty excelled
all earthly beauty, and who bore on her left arm
a beautiful boy, whose face was as. the brightness
of the moon. The boy plucked a branch from
a tree in the middle of the cloister and then they
vanished from his sight. The abbot and his
companions departed, but when they had gone a
little way they found themselves straitly shut in
within a place surrounded with thorns and bram-
bles and rocks, and there seemed no escape. In
despair the abbot suggested that they should s:y
their office. No sooner had they done so than
there appeared the beautiful lady with her boy
whom Abbot John had seen in the cloister, A
colloquy proceeded between the abbot and the
lady ; eventually the abbot addressed her : ‘ Good
lady, I humbly ask thee that thou wilt guide
me and my companions, wandering in this un-
known and straitened place, into the way to
that city where the monks with God’s help
ought to be established. ‘This I ask for the
love of thy friends at Byland, to which house
we all belong.” The lady replied that
they had been of Byland, but were then of
‘ Jorevall.”, When she named ‘ Jorevall’ he
greatly marvelled, and said, ‘Good lady, show us
the way to Jorevall, for thither are we bent.’
Then she looked at her son and said, ‘ Most
sweet son, for the love thou hast ever to me,
be thou their guide.’ And the boy, holding out
the branch he had plucked at Byland, said, with
a bright and joyous countenance, ‘IJ am going
forward, follow me without fear.’ At length
they reached an uncultivated and forbidding
spot, where the boy planted the bough, saying,
‘Here shall God be adored and invoked after
a short time.” In a moment the bough grew
into a most beautiful tree, full of white birds.
The monks were to rest there, for that was the

140

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

place they sought. Having planted the bough
the boy vanished. Abbot John slept no more
that night, but rose early in the morning, and
he and his monks went on by moonlight. At
daybreak they reached a village, and as some of
the inhabitants looked out of their windows,
they saw a number of persons in white pass by,
and oneof them said, ‘What a number of white
men are passing!’ Abbot John hearing this hid
in the shade by a wall, to learn what else might
be said, and another man asked his companion,
‘Do you know who these are?’ and the other
said, ‘No.’ Then he replied, ‘It was told me
yesterday at the hall that an abbot and twelve
monks were migrating from Byland to Jorevall.’
A third man who heard this, came out of his
house, and took observations of the moon and
stars and signs of the heavens, and said, ‘ These
men are moving at a propitious time, and in a
short period of thirty or forty years they will be
in such a condition as to suffer from no defi-
ciencies.’ ‘Abbot John hearing these words, it is
said, hastened to his companions well comforted.
The latter part of the story of the monks passing
through the village has a matter-of-fact look
of truth about it, while the vision or dream is
one of those pretty mediaeval tales which tend
to relieve the monotony of monastic history.

Hervey, son and heir of Akarius,® by charter
consented to the removal from Fors to the new
and better site, on condition that he did not
lose his patronage of the house or cease to be a
partaker in the prayers and good works done in
it. In 1156,’ therefore, the construction of the
new abbey at Witton began, and the new
house soon received fresh gifts from different
donors.®

In 1268° John, Duke of Britanny and Earl of
Richmond, confirmed to the monks their abbey
of Jervaulx, built in honour of the Blessed
Mary, and he also confirmed all the gifts which
the monks had of his ancestors, or any other
persons in a number of places which are named,
and by a later charter, dated 1281,! he enlarged
the rights of the monks very considerably in his
forest of Wensleydale.

Little, however, is known for a long period ot
the history of Jervaulx. As a Cistercian house
it was exempt from archiepiscopal visitation,
and like the other houses of the order there are
very few entries in the Registers as to it, and
none which throw light on its internal life.

In 1279 the Cistercian Annals" record the
murder of Philip, Abbot of Jervaulx, by one of

° Dugdale, Mon. Angl.v,573,no.xii. "Ibid. 567.

*A charter of Hen. III, 12 Feb. 1228, confirms
a number of grants of lands, &c., mostly in the
immediate district which different persons had made
to the Abbot and monks of Jervaulx. Dugdale, Mon.
Angi. v, 576, no. xxi.

9 Ibid. 575, no. xvi. * Ibid. no. xvii.

"Martene, Thesaurus Anecd. iv, 1465.

his monks. His successor, Abbot Thomas, was
accused of complicity but was acquitted, the jury
finding that the crime had been committed by
William de Modither, one of the monks, who
had fled and was outlawed.”

The abbey was so impoverished in 1403 '%
that Boniface 1X granted a dispensation to Abbot
Richard [Gower] that, seeing he could not
decently keep up his estate and burdens, he might
hold for life a benefice in the gift of himself and
the convent, or any other benefice with cure,
even if of lay patronage.

On 7 July 1409 ™ Pope Alexander V granted
that Abbot Richard, who had been sent by the
clergy of York to the general council then
recently held at Pisa, and his successors, might
wear the mitre, ring, and other pontifical insignia,
and in the monastery and its subject priories and
the churches belonging to it give solemn benedic-
tion after mass, vespers and matins, provided that
no bishop or papal legate were present.

The gross annual value of the house, including
temporalities and spiritualities, in 1535 was
£455 10s. §d., but the reprises reduced the
clear value to £234 185. 5d. Among the re-
prises were the pensions of three chaplains
celebrating at the altar of St. Stephen in the
metropolitical church of York, of the founda-
tion of the lord of Upsall, £20; £10 135. 44.
to two chaplains in the chapel of Lazenby, of
the foundation of John Lithgranes. Among the
alms distributed were bread and white and red
herrings, given to poor hermits and boys (pau-
pertbus hermitis et pueris) costing £4 135. 4d.
yearly ; alms on Maundy Thursday to parishion-
ers of Aysgarth 6s, 8¢., East Witton 6s. 87., and
Ainderby Steeple 35. 4d.

The last abbot, Adam Sedbergh, joined the
Pilgrimage of Grace, and suffered death by hang-
ing at Tyburn in June 1537,'° when the mon-
astic property was forfeited to the king.”

The letter of Richard Bellycis, written
on 14 November 153818 to Cromwell, may

" Assize R. 1064, m. 31 d.

° Cal. of Papal Letters,v,1. Three years previously
(1400) the same pope had granted Richard Abbot
of Jervaulx an indult for him and his successors
and for the monks when they went out of the mon-
astery for a reasonable cause to eat meat on lawful days.
Ibid. 329.

“ Cal. of Papal Letters, vi, 159. The grave-slab of
Abbot Peter de Snape (d. 1436) at Jervaulx has a
mitre on it (Cutts, Manual of Sepulchral Slabs and
Crosses, plate lxv, where it is figured); as has also the
grave-slab of Abbot Thornton, now in Middleham
Church. An illustration of the latter is given in
Atthill’s Collegiate Ch. of Middleham (Camd. Soc.),

XX.
ae Valr Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 241.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 567.

7 Exch. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), file 237, no. 24.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 567 ; Burton, Mon. Ebor.
372, &e

141

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

well conclude this account of Jervaulx. He

writes :

I have taken down all the Jead of Jervaux, and
made it into pecys of half fodders, which lead
amounteth to the number of eighteen score and five
fodders, with thirty and four fodders and a half that
were there before : and the said lead cannot be conveit
{conveyed] nor carried until the next sombre, for the
ways in that countre are so foul and deep, that no
caryage can pass in wyntre. And as concerninge the
raising and taking down of the House, if it be your
lordship’s pleasure, I am minded to let it stand to the
next spring of the year, by reason of the days are now
so short, it would be double charges to do it now.
And as concerninge the selling of the bells, I cannot
sell them above fifteen shillings the hundred [weight];
wherein I wolde gladly know your lordship’s pleasure,
whether I sholde sell them after that price, or send
them up to London ; and if they be sent up surely
the caryage will be costly from that place to the water.

ABBOTS OF JERVAULX?9

John de Kinstan 1150,” occurs 11707) (first

abbot)

John Brompton, occurs 1193 8

William, occurs 1198," 1209, (third
abbot) 8

Thomas, occurs 1218 7

Eustace, occurs 1224” to 1254 (fifth
abbot) ”°

Thomas, occurs 1258 *°

Philip, murdered 1279 *!

Thomas, occurs 1280 ”

Ralph, occurs 1289,*8 1300 *4

Simon de Miggelle, confirmed 1304 *

John, died (or resigned) 1312%8
abbot) 3

(eighth

1° There were twenty-three abbots of Jervaulx, and
the grave-slabs of six which remain record their order
of succession, and are valuable helps towards arrang-
ing a complete list. There seems to have been one
abbot whose name is not now known. ‘The six
whose grave slabs are preserved are John de Kinstan,
William, Eustace, John, Peter de Snape and Robert
Thornton.

9 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 571, no. vi.

Ibid. 567, quoting Cole MS.

” Grave-slab at Jervaulx.

*® Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. v, 567, quoting Willis.

% Thid. > Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 92.

6 Grave-slab at Jervaulx.

6 Le Neve’s MS. Cal. Feet of F. 2 Hen. III.

7” Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 92.

* Feet of F. file 47, no. 20, Hil. 38 Hen. III.

9 Grave-slab at Jervaulx.

%° Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 92.

1 Assize R. 1064, m. 31 d.

*Tbid ; Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 92.

8 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 567, quoting Willis.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 92.

> York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 33.

* Tbid. Greenfield, ii, slip between fol. 175 and 176.

*Grave-slab at Jervaulx: should, apparently, be
eleventh.

Thomas de Gristhwayte, confirmed 1312 ie
occurs 1338 **

Hugh, occurs 1342 °°

John, occurs 1349 *°

John de Rokewyk, occurs 1398 *

Richard Gower, elected 1399”

Peter de Snape, elected 1425“ (seventeenth
abbot) **

John Brompton II, confirmed 1436,*° occurs
1464 %

William Jerome, occurs 1469 *

William Heslington,” elected 1475 *

Robert Thorneton, elected 1510* (twenty-
second abbot) *°

Adam Sedbergh, elected 1533 * (last abbot)

The 14th-century seal is a vesica, 2} in. by
14 in., showing the abbot standing in a canopied
niche holding staff and book. On his right is a
shield of the arms of St. Quintin—three cheve-
rons with a chief vair, and on his left another
shield charged with a saltire. The legend is
broken away.

A second seal,*4 somewhat similar but more
elaborate in design, has an additional shield of
arms in the base which appears to be barry.

24. THE ABBEY OF KIRKSTALL

On a bed of sickness Henry Lacy, grandson
of Ilbert de Lacy, to whom the Conqueror had
given with other possessions the lordship of
Blackburnshire, vowed that if he recovered he
would found an abbey of the Cistercian order.
Having recovered, he made a grant to the Abbot
of Fountains of the village of Barnoldswick, close
to the boundaries of Yorkshire and Lancashire,
and within his lordship of Blackburn.?

38 York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, slip between
fol. 175 and 176.

38a Cal, Pat. 1338-40, p. 178.

York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 65.

“ Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 567 (Query ‘de Newby’
mentioned 1378, Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 92.)

" Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 121.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Scrope, fol. 100d.

® Tbid. sed. vac. fol. 408.

“ Grave-slab at Jervaulx.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 392.

“Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 92.

“Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 567.

“York Archiepis. Reg. G. Nevill, fol. 175

“Ibid. Bainbridge, fol. 20d.

°° Grave-slab, Middleham Collegiate Ch.

5} Dugdale, Mon. Angl.v, 567.

Cat. of Seals, BLM. 3315, Ixxxiv, 68.

“Ibid. 3316, Ixxiv, 69.

’ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 530, &c. no. i, ii, from
which the earlier history of the house and its founda-
tion is derived. The chartulary (Duchy of Lanc.
Misc. Bks. vii), printed by the Thoresby Soc., contains
much information as to the endowment of the abbey.

“2 Tbid.

* Ibid.

142

ab,

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Thither certain brothers were dispatched, who
built some humble offices, and according to the
custom of the order imposed a new name on the
place, calling it Mount St. Mary’s (AZons Sancte
Marie), Henry Lacy, however, was not the
chief lord of the grant he had given, which he
held of Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, bya yearly
payment which had lapsed for many years, and
about which Lacy had said nothing to the
Abbot of Fountains. Ata later period this led
to trouble, and the temporary dispossession of
the monks.

Alexander, Prior of Fountains, was chosen
abbot of the new convent, and on 18 May 1147
he left Fountains for Barnoldswick with twelve
monks and ten conversi to colonize the fifth abbey,
in order of time, peopled from Fountains, the
abbot of which became in consequence its pater
abbas.

The church of Barnoldswick was an ancient
church, having four parochial villages (villas
parochiales) dependent on it, and two hamlets.
The parishioners were accustomed to attend the
church on feast days with their priest and clerks,
and this disturbed the quiet of the monks. So
the abbot pulled down the church in spite of the
remonstrances of the parishioners. A sharp
contention, not unnaturally, arose, and the par-
ishioners took their case to the papal court, where
the pope in person decided for the monks and
against the parishioners. Afterwards the abbey
was moved and a new parochial church erected
on a fresh site, else it is not impossible that a
decision less obviously unfair to the parishioners
might have been given.

The monastery at Barnoldswick suffered very
much from the forays of robbers, probably Scots,
and also from the climate. Barnoldswick was cold
and bleak and the ‘importunity of the clouds,’
as the writer describes it, almost every year
spoilt the monastic crops. For more than six
years the monks existed in great poverty, and
Abbot Alexander began to look about for another
place to which the monastery could be transferred.
It so happened, the chronicler relates, that when
on a journey on the business of the house, he
passed through a well-wooded and shady valley
called Airedale, he found, on a level place in it,
certain hermits. Charmed with the place, he
asked their manner of life, to what order they
belonged, whence they came, and who had given
them the place. One of the hermits, Seleth by
name, who appeared to be their master, told the
abbot that he was a native of the south of England,
and thata voice had sounded to him in sleep, saying,
* Arise, Seleth, and go to the province of York,
and seek diligently in the vale called Airedale
for a certain place called Kirkstall, for there shalt
thou make ready a future habitation for the
brethren who serve my son.’ Asking who this
son might be, the answer was, ‘I am Mary, and
my son is Jesus of Nazareth the Saviour of the

world.’ Seleth, placing his hope in God, had
set forth from his home, and not without diff-
culty had reached the spot where the abbot
found him. From shepherds who kept their
flocks there he had at first obtained the place.
For many days he was alone, feeding on roots
and vegetables, and depending on the alms which
Christian charity brought him. Afterwards other
brothers joined him, having for rule a common
life, according to the order of the brothers of
Leruth, owning no property, but seeking food
and clothing by the work of their hands.

The abbot recognized the suitability of the
place for the construction of the abbey, and not
without a little guile, as he took his leave of the
hermits, began to warn them as to the health
and safety of their souls, pointing out the danger
of following their own will, their fewness in
number, disciples without a master, laymen with-
out a priest, persuading them to a better rule of
religion. ‘Then he went direct to Henry Lacy,
and pointed out the poverty of the monks, and
that he had found a place more particularly
suitable, the lord of the soil being a certain
knight, William of Poictou. The abbot calling
together the hermits, some joined the community
and others accepted a money compensation for
their right. William of Poictou, at the instance
of Lacy, granted the monks the place which had
belonged to the hermits, and on 20 May 1152
the monks moved from Barnoldswick to the
new site. “They secured possession of certain
land on the south up to the slope of the hill, and
having cut down the wood, cultivated the soil,
and made it fruitful. Henry de Lacy greatly
helped them with provisions and money. With
hisown hand he laid the foundation of the church
and completed it at his own cost.

When the monks left Barnoldswick that place
was reduced to the status of a grange. It has
been already mentioned that Henry de Lacy held
it of Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and that the
annual fee of 5 marks and a hawk had not been
paid for many years. Hugh Bigod, however,
as the overlord of Henry de Lacy substantiated
his claim to Barnoldswick in the king’s court
and dispossessed the monks. Later, however,
Henry II prevailed on the earl to give the grange
(for the redemption of his sins) in pure and per-
petual alms.

The first abbot, Alexander, ruled the house
for thirty-five years, and during his time the
church and other buildings were built and roofed.
He was a true abbot, in deed and in name, the
chronicler records, and in a good old age was
gathered to his fathers.

In 1156 Pope Adrian IV (Nicholas Brake-
spear) confirmed the church and all their pos-
sessions to the monks, and took them under his
protection.? Henry II also granted them a con-

? Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 536, no. xiv.

143

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

firmation of the property which the abbey then
possessed.?

Abbot Alexander was succeeded in 11824 by
Ralph Haget, who had also been Prior of
Fountains. His rule was not successful, and
although renowned for sanctity he seems to
have lacked business capacity. Perhaps it may
have been more his misfortune than mismanage-
ment, for he was afterwards elected Abbot of
Fountains, but Kirkstall became impoverished in
his time. The important grange of Mickle-
thwaite was alienated, and the monks seem to
have blamed him for that loss, for which he was
not responsible, as well as others, such as that of a
golden chalice and a text of the Gospels, which he
had given to Henry II to gain his good will.
For the nine years of his abbacy he remained at
Kirkstall with his monks struggling with poverty
until he was chosen Abbot of Fountains in 1191,
and was succeeded by Lambert, one of the twelve
monks who forty-two years before had left
Fountains to found the Abbey of Barnolds-
wick,

Abbot Lambert® is described as a man of
extraordinary innocency and simplicity, and one
who took little part in the temporal affairs of
the house, relying rather on his brethren’s ad-
vice.

In his time the grange of Cliviger was claimed
from the monks by Richard of Eland, and the
abbot, regarding the claim as a just one, resigned
Cliviger to Robert Lacy, the son of the founder,
and then patron of the abbey, who gave instead
of it a place called ‘Akarinton.” Removing the
inhabitants from Akarinton, he formed it into a
farm or grange, but some of the ejected inhabit-
ants burnt the grange with all its belongings,
besides killing the three conversi who had been
put in charge of it. Robert Lacy dealt very
severely with the evildoers, whom he banished,
making them first rebuild the grange and abjure
all right to it and pay money beyond the cost
of repairing the damage done to the monks.
The record concludes by saying that Abbot
Lambert died in a good old age after having held
office for thirty years, but his real term of office
appears to have been about five years.®

The next abbot was Turgis, a man who
practised extreme asceticism even for those days
of hard living. It is said that he wept so copi-
ously at his devotions and while saying mass,
that others could hardly wear the same sacerdotal
vestments.

Helias, a monk of Roche, who succeeded
Turgis in the abbacy, endeavoured to obtain
from King John the grange of Micklethwaite,
which Henry I had seized during the abbacy of
Ralph Haget, but the king would only consent

® Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, §35, no. xiii.
‘Ibid. s31. Ibid.
® See list of abbots below.

to grant the grange if the abbot would take the
manors of Bardsey and Collingham to farm,
paying yearly the sum of £90."

At the time of the appointment of Hugh
Grimston in 12848 the abbey was enormously
in debt, owing no less asum than £5,248 155. 7d.
besides 59 sacks of wool. The new abbot must
have set vigorously to work to reduce this debt,
for by July 1301 the house owed £160 only,
while its farm stock comprised 216 draught
oxen, 160 cows, 152 yearlings and bullocks,
go calves, and 4,000 sheep and lambs.

In 1380-1° besides the abbot there were
sixteen monks and six conversi,

In 1394-5 the alien cell of Burstall in
Holderness, belonging to the abbey of St. Martin
near Albemarle in France, was sold to the Abbot
and convent of Kirkstall} who thus became
possessed of several churches and considerable
property in the east of Yorkshire, which they
retained till the Dissolution.

The entrance of women within the precincts
of Cistercian monasteries of men was very
strictly forbidden, but Pope Boniface IX having
granted indulgences to those persons of either
sex who visited the conventual church of Kirk-
stall on certain days, Robert Burley, Abbot of
Fountains, pater abbas of Kirkstall, agreed in
1401 to tolerate pro tempore the admission of
women to the church only on condition that
they visited no other of the monastic buildings
and were not received there by the abbot or
monks,"

In 1432 John Colyngham resigned the
office of abbot, and his successor, also named
John, with the convent made provision for him.
He was to receive a yearly pension of 20 marks
for life, and to have a chamber assigned for his
free use, called ‘the White Chawmber.’ Besides
this, his portion of bread, ale and victuals was
to be that of two monks, and he was to have
lights, with wood for fuel. He was to take
rank everywhere immediately after the existing
abbot, and, if he so wished, might take his meals
in the abbot’s chamber. A servant was to be
assigned to him as to the abbot, and if ill a
monk was to be deputed by the abbot or prior
to look after him.

Possibly because a visitation of all the Cister-
cian houses of men in England was in progress
at the time, this agreement was confirmed by
the three abbot visitors, William, Abbot of

” Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 534, where King John’s
charter, dated 4 May 1205, is printed (no. vii), from
the original formerly in St. Mary’s Tower, York.

* Dugdale, Mow. Angi. v, 528,n.

® Subs. R. 63, no. 12.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 298, where an alphabetical
list of the churches, lands, &c. which passed to
Kirkstall will be found.

" Cott. Chart. iv, 39.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 3684.

144

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Clairvaux, John, Abbot ‘de Theolosco,’ and
John [Ripon], Abbot of Fountains. Indeed,
the resignation of Abbot Colyngham may have
resulted from this visitation of the abbey,
although nothing is said to that effect.

A very large amount of property was gradually
acquired by the abbey of Kirkstall. It mainly
lay in the neighbourhood of the abbey, in
Blackburnshire, and in the East Riding, the
latter being the property purchased from the
abbey of St. Martin near Albemarle."

In the Taxation of 1291 the temporalities
were valued at £68 55. 8d.'4 The returns for
part of Yorkshire in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of
Henry VIII are defective, and the portion
relating to Kirkstall is missing.

The monastery was surrendered by John
Ripley, abbot, and the convent on 22 November

1540.)°
ABBOTS OF KIRKSTALL

Alexander (first abbot) 1147 78

Ralph Haget, succeeded 1182”

Lambert, succeeded 1191 18

Turgesius,!® c. 1196”

Helias de Rupe, occurs
1203-47)

Ralph of Newcastle, occurs 29 September
1260,° f290""

Walter, after 1230 7

Martin, occurs 1237 ™

Maurice, occurs 1236-7,° died 1249”

28 February

Adam, succeeded 1249," occurs 1256,”
1258 °

Hugh Mikelay, confirmed 1259,7' died
1262”

Simon, confirmed 1262, died 1269 *
William de Ledes, 1269 ®
Robert, c. 1271-5 *

8 Burton, Mon. Ebor. 288-96.

™ Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 325.

® Dugdale, Mon. Ang. v, 550, no. lil.

7 Tbid. 531, no. ii; Abbot of Fountains 11g1-
1203.

8 Thid. _ ® Thid. 528 n.

0 Guisborough Chartul. ii, 41.

1 Yorks. Fines, Fohn (Surt. Soc.), 20; a monk of
Roche.

Thid. 157.

8 York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 85.

"4 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 528. (No date given
there, but he comes after Ralph, so after 1230.)

* Feet of F. Yorks. file 30, no. 163; 20-3
Henry III.

°° Archbp. Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 328.

77 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 528. 8 Ibid.

* Lancs. Fines, i, 129.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 503, no. vii.

31 Thid. 528. 3 Thid.

33 Thid. 3% Ibid. 3% Tbid.

36 Mentioned in 1370 as abbot temp. Hen. III and
Edw. 1; Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 112.

Gilbert de Cotles, Cothes or Cotes, 15 August
1275 (for three years, one month, and four
days) re-elected 12 December 1278 (2) and
was abtot till 1 August 1280,°7 occurs
1280 *

Henry Karr, succeeded 1280 *

Hugh Grimston, confirmed 27 February
1288-9 ”

William de Parlington, occurs 1290

John de Birdsall, elected 1304,” occurs 1311

Walter, elected 1313 *

William, occurs 1337,*° 1348 **

Roger de Ledes, confirmed 1349 “°

Ralph, occurs 1351 47

John Topcliffe, occurs 1356,47, 1368 *

John de Thornberg, occurs 1369," 1378

John de Bardsey, occurs 1392,” 1396, 1399”

William Stapleton, occurs 1414 °

John de Colyngham, resigned 1432 °4

John, occurs 1432"

William Grayson ® or Graveson, occurs
1452,°” resigned 1468

Thomas Wymbirslay, confirmed 1468," oc-
curs 14.98 ©

Robert Killingbeck, elected 1499 ®

William Stokdale, elected 1501,”
25 February 1506-7 ®

John Ripley, 1508 “

William Marshall, elected December 1509 ®

John Ripley (second time), elected 15 May
1528, surrendered the abbey 22 November
1540"

occurs

37 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 528.

3 Feet of F. Yorks. file 60, no. 115, 8 Edw. I.
The first two forms of his surname are in Dugdale
and Burton, ‘ Cotes’ in Baildon.

3 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 529.

“| Coram Rege R. 125, m. 50d.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 21.

8 Add. Chart. 16782.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, slip between
fol. 77 and 78.

“© Duchy of Lanc. Misc. Bks. vii, fol.83. ** Ibid.
*® York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 4.

" Cal. of Papal Letters, iil, 375.

72 As ‘John’; Assize R. 1130, m. 170.

8 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 107. © Tbid.

59 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 529 (from Whitaker’s
Hist. of Craven). 5! Baildon’s MS. Notes.

Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 529.

53 Cal. of Papal Letters, vi, 4.10.

5 York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 3684.

5 Thid. 6 Ibid. G. Nevill, fol. 16.

57 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 107.

5° York Archiepis. Reg. G. Nevill, fol. 16.

5 Thid. ® Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 107.

§' Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 529.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 11.

% Test. Ebor. iv, 256.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 529.

% York Archiepis. Reg. Bainbridge, fol. 9d.

Ibid. Wolsey, fol. 94.

8’ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 550, no. liii.

3 145 19

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The 14th-century seal® is circular, 2}in.
in diameter, showing our Lady crowned and
seated with the Child, and the legend :—

SIGILLVM COMMVNE DE KYRKESTAL

A 13th-century abbot’s seal, a vesica 2}in.
by 12in., shows the abbot standing between two
heads of saints with this legend :—

« BATIS DE KIRKESTALL

The seal of Abbot John de Birdsall
(1304-11) is a small vesica 1} in. by $ in.
with a design of a naked arm, the hand hold-
ing a crozier between two suns and as many
moons.

Abbot William, sealed in 1343 with a vesica™
1Zin. by 1}in. with a full-length figure of
himself holding crozier and book.

25. ABBEY OF MEAUX

The abbey of Meaux or Melsa was founded in
1150 by the Earl of Albemarle, William le Gros,
lord of Holderness,! in lieu of a pilgrimage to the
Holy Land which he had vowed to undertake.
Adam, a monk of Fountains, was invited by the
earl to select a site for the proposed abbey and
decided upon Meaux in Holderness, a well-
wooded and well-watered district to the east of
Beverley, in the midst of which was an eminence
called St. Mary’s Hill. Striking his staff into the
ground he exclaimed, ‘ Here shall be ordained a
people worshipping Christ.?? This site the earl
had already begun to empark for his own use, and
he tried to substitute some other place, but the
monk remained firm.? Temporary buildings
were at first erected, and a chapel close by, and
then on 28 December 1150 the earl sent to
Fountains Abbey for thirteen brethren, including
the monk Adam who was to be first abbot.
These ‘religious’ entered their new home on
1 January, and the abbey became the last of seven
religious houses springing from Fountains, ‘all
daughters of one mother ’ * and all founded before
the parent abbey had attained her majority.®

In the Chronica two well-arranged tables are
given of the lands, &c., acquired during the
abbacies of the first eighteen heads of the house.
In these lists 129 places are particularized where
the properties were situated. Between 1160 and

58 Cat. of Seal, B.M. 3364, xlix, 15 ; lxxiv, 72.
® Tbid. 3366, lxxiv, 73.

Ibid. 3367; Add. Chart. 16688.

" Cat. of Seal, B.M. 3368, xlix, 16.

' Chron. Mon. de Melsa (Rolls Ser.), i, p. xiii.

> Lawton, Re/ig. Houses, 58 n.

* Chron. de Meksa, i, pp. xiv—xvi.

* Fasti Ebor. 214.

* Fountains Abbey was founded in 1132.

° Chron. de Melsa, i, 50-69.

1182 a stone church and dormitory were begun’;
in 1182-97 this church was demolished and a
new one begun,® and in the same period a stone
refectory, wash-house and kitchen were built,’
and a refectory for the lay-brethren begun”; in
1197-1210 the cloisters were started and another
new church, which was finally finished, its high
altar being consecrated in 1253’; in 1220-35
the infirmary was taken in hand”; in 1249-69
the belfry was erected and the great bell ‘Bene-
dict’ hung in it, and a granary also built 3; in
1286-1310 a chamber east of the cemetery was
erected, and the abbot’s chamber east of the
infirmary. The fourteenth abbot (1310-39)
and one of the monks, John of Ulram, decorated
the high altar with paintings, and a chapel was
commenced over the abbey gateway ; William,
the eighteenth abbot (1346-69), made numerous
alterations and improvements and founded the
great ‘Jesus’ bell; and in 1396-9 three bells
were added.)

This development of the monastic buildings
was dictated by the exigencies of the brethren
from time to time. During the first abbacy
strenuous efforts were made to raise the num-
ber of monks to forty ; later on it sprang up to
fifty ; about 1235 another was added by a benefac-
tion ad hoc; another soon followed in the same
way ; and in 1249 there were no less than sixty
monks. A century later, 1349, the number had
gone down to forty-two, in 1393 there were only
twenty-eight,'®and at the Dissolution there were
no more than twenty-five including the abbot.”

But besides the monks there were varying
numbers of converst or lay brethren. By the
year 1249 there were no less than ninety of them,
in 1349 there were only seven,!® and in the period
1372-96 there were none.”

The first abbot, Adam, had been one of the
little band of monks who in 1132, discontented
with the laxity of the Benedictine Abbey of
York, had founded Fountains Abbey. Since then
he had been active in establishing new foundations
at Woburn and Vaudey,” and he now threw
himself enthusiastically into the task of fostering
the infant community at Meaux. But his zeal
outran his discretion, and liberal as were the endow-
ments which he secured for the abbey, they were
insufficient to support the forty monks whom he
had drawn together. Although he gave up his
own tunics to clothe the novices, circumstances
were too strong for him, and in 1160 the con-

vent had temporarily to be broken up.?!_ Morti-
” Ibid. 178. ° Ibid. 234.
‘Ibid. 217. ” Ibid. 217, 326.
" Ibid. 326. " Ibid. 433.
* Tbid. ii, 119. * Ibid. 238.
* Ibid. iii, 240. % Tbid. p. xxxvil.

” Poulson, Holderness, 314.
* Chron. de Melsa, iii, p. xxxvii.
® Ibid. p. xii. 7° Ibid.

i, 76.
" Ibid. 107. J

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

fied by his failure, he meditated resignation, under
pretext of a journey to Rome, undertaken in
connexion with his unauthorized surrender of
certain charters to Archbishop Roger.” Ac-
cordingly in 1160 he resigned and retired to an
anchorite’s cell in the newly-founded priory of
Watton, where he lived for seven years, until
the church and his cell were burnt down,
when he returned to Meaux, dying there in
1780,"

The second abbot, Philip, Prior of Kirkstead,
who succeeded in 1160, bore office for twenty-
two years and maintained the numbers and
spiritual discipline of the house, though he did
not greatly increase its wealth. During the rule
of his successor the house was involved in a costly
lawsuit with the powerful Sir Robert de Thurn-
ham ; bad seasons, with a failure of crops, hit the
monks hard, and to crown all, they had to raise
300 marks for the ransom of King Richard.
Once more the convent had to be broken up,”
the monks dispersed amongst the different houses
of the order, but after fifteen months William de
Rule, rector of Cottingham, feeling the approach
of his death, became a novice in the abbey,
bringing withhim £200. This enabled the con-
vent to reassemble, but Abbot Thomas, a worthy
man of no great ability, feeling his own incom-
petence, resigned in December 1197.” By the
advice of the father Abbot of Fountains the monks
elected Alexander, a monk of Ford Abbey, who
was intimate with the justiciary, Hubert, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. By his influence the
justiciary was induced to appeal to Robert de
Thurnham on behalf of the monks, but it was
not until the sudden death of his master, King
Richard, in 1199 that Sir Robert consented to
restore the lands in dispute. Other costly law-
suits followed, and Abbot Alexander, a man of
character and courage, led the opposition of the
Cistercians to King John’s demands for an aid or
_ grant of money. He further instigated Arch-
bishop Geoffrey and the expelled bishop to com-
plain to the pope against the king ; and on a second
demand for an aid from the Cistercians he alone
resisted this infringement of their privileges.
Meaux was also one of the three English houses
which maintained the privileges of the order by
continuing to celebrate mass during the Interdict.””
His courageous conduct made him a marked man
and brought down the king’s vengeance upon his
house, so that once more almost all the monks had
to leave the abbey, fortunately obtaining hospital-
ity from Earl Baldwin of Albemarle. To avert
further catastrophe Abbot Alexander resigned in
1210 and retired to Ford, where he died two

* Chron de Mela, i, 107. He had, however, retained
duplicates of the charters, by which the monks after-
wards recovered the lands ; ibid. 94.

3 Ibid. 107. * Thid. 233.

% Ibid. 234. * Ibid. p. xxxiv.

7 Martene, Thesaurus Anecd. iv.

years later.” Meanwhile the abbey had purchased
the king’s goodwill by a fine of 1,000 marks,
The payment of this large sum by the succeeding
abbot, Hugh, formerly Prior of Meaux, so crippled
the abbey that the monks had once more to aban-
don it for a short time, and as all the English
Cistercian houses were suffering from the king’s
exactions and could hardly support their own
members, some of the monks went to St. Mary’s,
York, some to Bridlington Priory, some to
Cistercian houses in Scotland, and the rest were
quartered in batches in neighbouring castles and
villages.”®

The convent reassembled at the beginning of
November 1211, and settled down to their normal
life, building, acquiring property, and quarrelling
with their neighbours. About 1260, during the
abbacy of William of Driffield, the sub-prior of
Meaux was instrumental in averting an armed
struggle between the military tenants of Holder-
ness and the royal forcessent to coerce them into
rendering certain disputed feudal services.%
Abbot William, a man of wonderful sanctity but
inferior as an administrator to his predecessor,
Michael Brun, died in 1269, and a few years
later we find the abbey burdened with a debt of
nearly £4,000." Roger, the thirteenth abbot,
who succeeded in 1286, considerably reduced the
debt, but the most important event of his rule
was the surrender to the king in 1293 of the
abbey’s manor of Wick, where Edward I founded
the port of Kingston-on-Hull. Besides granting
lands in exchange the king caused Master Richard
of Ottringham to place under Meaux a chantry
which he was founding and endowing.” By the
terms of this chantry seven monks were to reside
at Ottringham, but as this resulted in a scandalous
relaxation of the monastic rule the chantry was
removed, thirty years after its foundation, to a
chapel just outside the gates of the monastery.**

Abbot Adam of Skyrne by the time of his
death in 1339 had reduced the debt of the house
to below £400, but it was speedily brought up
again by the mismanagement of his successor,
Hugh de Leven, and by the inundation of the
monastic estates on the sea-coast.*4 During
Abbot Hugh’s rule a crucifix was carved for
the quire of the lay brethren by a man who
was so much of a religious enthusiast that
he only worked upon it on Fridays, fasting, and
so much of an artist that he employed a nude
model.*® The crucifix proving miraculous, leave
was obtained for women to visit it, but as a
source of income this expedient proved dis-
appointing, as more came out of curiosity than
devotion, and their entertainment cost more than
their alms brought in.

8 Chron. de Melsa, i, 329.
39 Thid. ii, p. xx.

3 Tbid. 192-5.

% Thid. ili, p. vil.

Thid. 354.
3 Ibid. 156.
33 Thid. 295-6.
% Ibid. 35.

147

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

On the Friday before Passion Sunday 1349,
as the monks were singing ‘ He hath put down
the mighty from their seat’ they were flung to
the ground by an earthquake shock, and the
meaning of the portent was seen later in the year
when on 12 August Abbot Hugh and five monks
died of the Black Death, which in that one
month carried off twenty-two monks and six lay
brethren, and at its departure left only ten
survivors out of a congregation of fifty.°* With
rents diminished by the death of tenants and
lands untilled for lack of labour the ‘new abbot,
William of Dringhow, was forced to raise ready
money by ruinous sacrifices, and the cellarer,
John Ryslay, was not slow to turn this to his
own advantage. Ryslay bribed the Abbot of
Fountains to visit Meaux in 1353 and deprive
Abbot William, and when the monks elected
Thomas of Sherborne the visitor refused him be-
cause he was blind in one eye and appointed
John Ryslay.*7 The new abbot continued to
persecute his deprived predecessor and tried to
take away his allowance, but Dringhow escaped
and fled to Rome, where he got himself re-
appointed and issued a citation against Ryslay,
who at once resigned, in July 1356, and
eventually retired to Roche Abbey.*® Robert of
Beverley was at once elected, and Dringhow was
persuaded to acquiesce in his election by the
grant of a very liberalallowance. On the death
of Abbot Robert, in November 1367, William of
Dringhow was again elected. Ryslay was then
at Rome and commenced proceedings against
Dringhow, but the latter obtained his adversary’s
recall by the Abbot of Roche, and held office till
his death in 1372.7

William of Scarborough, who was elected in
1372, appears to have had an artistic tempera-
ment; he enriched the fabric of his church, but was
extravagant and lax in discipline. After more
than twenty years’ rule, when he was nearly eighty,
he desired to resign, but his monks, who appre-
ciated his laxity and feared the advent of a stricter
disciplinarian, refused their assent, and it was only
by the intervention of the Duke of Gloucester,
patron of the abbey, that he was able to retire
from office in 1396. ‘The ensuing election was
hotly disputed, but eventually the bursar, Thomas

Burton, a man of considerable ability, was

appointed, Very soon, however, a faction with-
in the convent began to try to unseat him, and
two monks were sent to a general chapter of the
order which was sitting at St. Mary of Graces,
London, to protest that Burton had been forced
upon the abbey by the Duke of Gloucester and
the Abbot of Fountains. The Abbots of Roche
and Garendon were appointed to inquire into the

°° Chron. de Melsa, iii, 37.
7 Tbid. 87, 94.

3 Ibid. 110, III.

® Ibid. 166-7.

matter, but upon arriving at Meaux found the
abbey held against them by armed force by
Robert Burley, Abbot of Fountains, and Abbot
Thomas Burton, who had meanwhile sent to
Rome to procure a bull annulling all the com-
missions issued by the chapter held at St. Mary
of Graces. This bull appears to have been
brought to them by a foreign monk, Sigismund ; *!
and when the visiting Abbots of Roche and
Garendon returned, accompanied by the repre-
sentative of the patron, the Duke of Albemarle,
they were admitted and confronted with the bull
annulling their powers. By their good offices,
however, a compromise was effected and peace
restored. Soon afterwards Abbot Burton went
to Vienna to represent the Yorkshire abbots at a
general chapter and had the honour of taking the
place of the absent schismatic Abbot of Clairvaux.
On his return the Abbot of Fountains held a
visitation and revived all the old trouble by trying
to punish those who had formerly disobeyed
Abbot Burton. ‘The offenders appealed to Rome,
and Burton, to save his house the expenses
of protracted litigation, resigned on 24 August
1399, and devoted himself to writing the his-
tory of his abbey until his eyesight failed, some
eight years before his death, which occurred in
1437-7

‘Lhe successor of Burton was William Wend-
over, who had been degraded from the post of
prior for his opposition to the late abbot. He
was a man of learning and many merits, but
unbusinesslike, and during his rule the officials of
the convent abused their powers, the bursar,
Robert Lekynfeld, even accumulating so much
money that he was able to go secretly to Rome
and get himself appointed Bishop of Killaloe, in
which capacity he acted as suffragan to the
Bishop of Lichfield.“

Meaux had a splendid library and a wonderful
collection of relics, a list of books and treasures
being given in the Chronica.

The abbey was surrendered on 11 December
1539 by the last abbot, Richard Stopes, who
received a pension of £40. The prior, George
Throstyl, received a pension of £6, fourteen of
the twenty-three monks pensions of £6, and
the remaining nine pensions of £5 each, all
being in priests’ orders.*”

The gross value at the Dissolution was
£445 10s. 54d., and the net £298 6s. 44d.

“ Early Chan. Proc. bdle. 29, no. 153.

“ Chron. de Melsa, i, pp. lviii-lxx ; iii, 239-76.

® Ibid. iti, 277-8.

“ Ibid. 279.

“ Poulson, Holderness, 304 et seq. ; 311 et seq.

““ L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (2), 670.

" Thid.

“Lawton, Relig. Houses, 59. At the end of
the 14th century the income of the house appears
to have been about £530 gross, or £430 net ; Chron.
de Melsa, ii, p. lx ; Poulson, op. cit. 303.

148

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Assots oF Meraux %

Adam, 1150-60

Philip, 1160-82

Thomas, 1182-97

Alexander, 1197-1210

Hugh, 1210-20

Geoffrey, 1220-1

Richard, 1221-35

Michael Brun, 1235-49

William, 1249-69

Richard, 1269-70

Robert, 1270-80

Richard de Barton, 1280-6

Roger de Driffield, 1286-1310

Adam de Skyrne, 1310-39

Hugh de Leven, 1339-49

William de Dringhow, first abbacy, 1349-53

John de Ryslay, 1353-6

Robert de Beverley, 1356-67

William de Dringhow, second
1367-72

William de Scarborough, 1372-96

‘Thomas Burton, 1396-9

William Wendover, 1399

John Ripon, resigned 1413

John Hoton, occurs 1436, died 1445 7

Philip Dayvill, elected 4 March 1445, died
1458

John Sutton, elected 7 October 1458, re-
signed 1463

William Deryff, confirmed 1 September 1463

Ralph Same, received benediction 17 De-
cember 1471

John Clapham, received benediction 4 Sep-
tember 1488

Richard Stoppes, received benediction 22 Nov-
ember 1523, surrendered 1539

abbacy,

An abbot’s seal *? has an abbot with his crozier.
Legend—
SIGILLUM ABBATIS DE MELSA

The early 14th-century seal ® is circular, 2 in.
in diameter, having the Virgin enthroned in a
niche with trefoiled pointed arch, crocketed and
supported on slender shafts; the Child, with
nimbus, on the left knee. In the field on each
side a lion, and above them on the right a cres-
cent, on the left a sun. Legend—

++ VIRGO PVDICA PIA NOSTRI MISERERE MARIA

“Names extracted from Chron. de Melsa, i-iii,
except where otherwise specified in notes.

*° In 1413 John Ripon became Abbot of Foun-
tains ; Cal. Pat. 1413-16, p. 145.

5 Names and dates of last seven abbots from
Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 388.

* Poulson, Holderness, 314.

53 Ibid. where see note on the discovery of the
matrix in 1834 at Meaux. This seal is erroneously
described in the Cat. of Seals, B.M. (i, 820), under
St. Mary’s Abbey, York, as an ‘uncertain seal.’

26. THE ABBEY OF RIEVAULX

The abbey of Rievaulx, the earliest Cister-
cian monastery in the county, was founded in
1131 by Walter Espec,! who gave to certain
of the monks sent to England about 1128 by
St. Berriard from Citeaux land near Helmsley,
in the valley of the Rye, on the north side of
which the monastery was built. From its posi-
tion it received the name of Ryevale, or Rievaulx.

Although the house was meagrely endowed
by the founder, it speedily received other dona-
tions of land of considerable extent and value,
so that within probably half a century from the
foundation of the abbey it had acquired possession
of no less than 50 carucates of land besides
other property ; all are fully described in alpha-
betical order by Burton.?

It has been suggested that the mission of monks
sent to England by St. Bernard from Citeaux
was largely directed to Yorkshire, through the
influence of Archbishop Thurstan.? Not only
did Rievaulx send out a detachment of monks
to people the abbey of Warden in Bedford-
shire, founded by Walter Espec in 1135,
almost before the settlement at Rievaulx itself
can have been fairly established, but in the year
following another colony went to inhabit the
abbey of Melrose, founded by David I in 1136;
and in 1142 yet a third body of monks left
Rievaulx for the abbey of Revesby in Lincoln-
shire, founded by William de Roumare, Earl of
Lincoln, and in 1146 or 1148 another draft of
monks went to Rufford.

All this points to the fact that the number
of monks who first came to Rievaulx must
have largely exceeded the number usually sent
to form a new convent, and it implies that
Rievaulx was regarded as the source from which
other Cistercian monasteries might be peopled.
This may explain Walter de Gant’s gift of
Stainton as the site of an abbey to be founded
(ad abbathiam construendam ibi) by Rievaulx,*
as well as the gift by Olaf, king of Man, of land
in that island, for the foundation of an abbey at
Rushen. The strain on their numbers in
founding the abbeys already mentioned perhaps
exhausted the power of the monks of Rievaulx
to undertake the work proposed to them by
King Olaf, and his gift was afterwards transferred
to Furness, the abbey of Rushen being colonized
from that house.®

As to Stainton, the same reason may have
prevented the monks of Rievaulx from estab-
lishing a monastery there, and so led them to
exchange Walter de Gant’s land with Henry II
for other land nearer Rievaulx than Stainton,

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 274.

? Burton, Mon. Ebor. 358.

5 Chartul. of Riewaulx (Surt. Soc.), Introd. p. xxxvii,
* Ibid. 261.

5 Tbid. Introd. p. liv.

149

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

which was in the parish of Downholme, not
very far from Richmond.®

Having founded the abbey of Warden,
Walter Espec entered the abbey of Rievaulx
as a monk, and died and was buried there.’

Quite early in the history of the house a
strange agreement was entered into between
the monks of Rievaulx and the canons of
Kirkham,® whereby the latter were to cede to
Rievaulx the whole of Kirkham, with its church
and the canons’ buildings, gardens, and mills,
as well as Whitwell and Westow, and 4
carucates of land in Thixendale, and of their
stock a wagon and 100 sheep, on condition that
the patron would give them the whole of Linton
and ‘Hwersletorp. Their prior and _ his
assistants (sui auxilarit) were to build them a
church and other monastic offices. It seems
that there must have been a proposal that
Kirkham should become Cistercian (a proposal
which caused a division in that house), and that
it was intended that Rievaulx should take over
Kirkham as a Cistercian monastery, the dis-
sentient canons having a new house built for
them elsewhere. It is clear that Walter Espec
was living ® when the agreement was drawn up,
and his preference for the Cistercian order as
evidenced by his entry as a monk at Rievaulx,
may have made him wish that his three founda-
tions, Kirkham, Rievaulx, and Warden should
be of the Cistercian order; the agreement,
however, fell through.

Another incident in the early history of the
house is also difficult to understand. It is
revealed in a rescript from Pope Alexander III
(1159-81) ” to the Bishop of Exeter, the Abbot of
St. Mary, York, and the Dean of York directing
them to see that amends were made for the
spoliation of the property of the abbey of
Rievaulx by certain persons named, and the
strange thing is that the offenders were some
of the chief benefactors of the abbey. Robert
and William de Stuteville had been guilty of
various acts of depredation, and the pope ordered
that within thirty days they were to make
restitution, under pain of excommunication.
Seven other offenders are named, including
Roger de Mowbray and his son Nigel.

In 1143 Roger de Mowbray granted Old
Byland to the convent of monks who had left
Calder, intending that they should build their
monastery on the south side of the River Rye,
but the site was too near Rievaulx, and each
house heard the bells of the other. In conse-
quence of this the monks of Byland moved
further off, but the lands of the two houses were
coterminous, and to avoid possible disputes an
agreement was entered into between Aelred,

® Chartul. of Rievaulx (Surt. Soc ), Introd. p, lviii.
"Tbid. 264. * Ibid. 108.
* Ibid. Introd. p. xxiv. “ Thid. 194, no. cclxii.

Abbot of Rievaulx, and Roger, Abbot of Byland,
about 1154.1! This agreement began by a
mutual engagement of masses and prayers for
deceased brothers of the two houses and a com-
bined action against oppression or misfortune by
fire or otherwise, and then defined the relations
of the two houses as to their adjoining lands,
both the homeland of the two houses and their
properties at a distance, where they adjoined
each other. As to the homelands, the Byland
monks conceded to their brethren of Rievaulx
that they should have their bridge so constructed
that it should hold back the wood they conveyed
by the River Rye, and also a road from the
bridge through the wood and field of Byland to
a place called Hestelsceit, 18 ft. in width, which
the monks of Byland were to keep in repair.
They were to have mutual rights on each others’
banks of the river. The monks of Byland
should peaceably retain the house they had built
at Deepdale (near Cayton), and all that they
possessed or might obtain in Gristhorpe, Fals-
grave, Seamer, Irton and West Ayton, except
the meadowland of the last-named, none of
which they were to hold except with the consent
of the monks of Rievaulx. In Hutton and
Brompton neither house was to accept anything
for the purpose of building without the consent
of the other. The beasts of the grange of Griff
(belonging to Rievaulx) were to have pasturage
within the wood of Scawton only from Burnsdale
to Sproxton, the rest of Scawton was to remain
the property of the Byland monks. Then
followed in the agreement a description of the
boundaries between other of their properties
both at hand and in the West Riding. This
conventio karitatis was in 1170 again confirmed
with certain additions, Sylvanus being then
Abbot of Rievaulx and Roger still holding office
at Byland.

A very severe rebuke was addressed by Alex-
ander II to Archbishop Roger Pont l’Eveque ?
for placing Rievaulx under an interdict and
threatening the monks with excommunication
until they should pay his clerk the tithes from
which they had been exempted by papal authority.
Another letter’ from the same pope rebuked
Bishop Hugh and the Prior of Durham for ex-
tortion in the matter of the annual payment to
be made by the abbey in consideration of the
tithes of Cottam. In 1243 Innocent IV
extended a papal grant to the Abbot and convent
of Rievaulx, exempting them from payment of
tithes of property acquired after the said indult
in regard to which they were being molested by
prelates and clerks of the diocese of York.

Rievaulx being a Cistercian abbey and so
exempt from episcopal visitation, very little is

" Ibid. 176, no. ccxliii.
¥ Ibid. 191. ® Ibid. 192.
“ Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 199.

150

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

known of its internal affairs or history. One
incident of interest is recordedin 1279. William
de Aketon, a monk of Rievaulx, evidently wish-
ing to abandon monastic life, came to the prior,
Nicholas of York, and said that he was a leper
and could no longer dwell with the brethren,
and therefore begged leave to depart. Another
monk, Jordan de Normanton, came up and
wished to examine William to see if he really
was leprous, whereupon the malingerer drew his
knife and stabbed him in the hand and fled into
the woods. Abbot William de Daneby was at
once told, and he immediately sent two of the
monks to pursue him. The fugitive was caught
in the woods and so severely beaten that he died
a few days after he had been brought back to
the monastery.!© William de Daneby seems to
have succeeded another Abbot William, who had
apparently been deposed and banished, asin 1279
it was reported that certain lay brethren of
Rievaulx who had been concerned in the
murder of John de Slarebrond had been sheltered
by ‘William, then Abbot of Rievaulx, now a
monk of Byland.’!® In 1380-1 besides the
abbot and prior, John de Layton (or Lanton),
there were thirteen other monks and three
conversi.

In 140678 a glimpse of the inside life of the
abbey is afforded, with one of those little touches
which give life to a picture, by a mandate of
Pope Innocent VII, which states that each monk
in priest’s orders was bound in turn for a week
at a time to sing mass solemnly (a/ta voce ad
notam) at the high altar, and to say the invitatory,
such monks being called ebdomadarii, put that
Thomas Beverley had an impediment of tongue,
on account of which he could not do this be-
comingly, so he was granted a dispensation from
performing the office.

What is generally known as the battle of
Byland took place in October 1322, and must
have greatly affected the two abbeys of Rievaulx
and Byland, but nothing certainly is known as to
what happened to Rievaulx in consequence of it.
The encounter between the English and the
Scots took place on the high ground between the

8 Assize R. 1064, m. 27. 6 Ibid. m. 28.

7 Subs. R. 63, no. 12. In 1318, the king, on
petition of the Abbots of Rievaulx and Byland, had
directed the archbishop to make a new taxation of
those abbeys and other benefices wasted by the incur-
sions of the Scots. That was of course before what
is known as the Battle of Byland, when still further
destruction was made. Rievaulx Chartul. (Surt. Soc.),

26.

a Cal. of Papal Letters, vi, 176. In 1402 Boniface IX
granted a faculty to John de Firthby, Monk of
Rievaulx and papal chaplain, to dispose of his books
and certain other movables for the expenses of his
funeral, and the remuneration of his servants or kins-
men and others, and after deducting his debts, to
convert them to other pious and lawful uses. He
was to be liberal to his monastery. Ibid. v, 546.

two houses and near Byland, but according to
the most trustworthy accounts the English king
was at Rievaulx and not Byland Abbey when
he received news of the defeat of his army.’®
He fled at once to York for safety, leaving,
according to the chronicler of Lanercost, his
silver plate and a great treasure behind him at
Rievaulx. This fell into the hands of the Scots,
and we are left to realize the sinister significance
of the words et monasterium spoliaverunt without
being told any details of the spoliation,

The concluding years of Rievaulx were stormy,
and it is clear that the abbot, Edward Kirkby,
was ill affected towards the impending religious
charges. It was desirable, therefore, to get him
out of the way. On 1 September 1533” the
king’s commissioners complained that Abbot
Kirkby had written a letter ‘to the slaundare
of the kinges heygnes, and after the kynges
lettars receivyed, dyd imprison and otharways
punyche divers of hys brethren whyche ware
ayenst him and hys dissolute liwing ; also dyd
take from one of the same, being a very agyd
man, all hys money.’ Further they complained
that ‘all the cuntre makythe exclamations of
this Abbot of Rywax, uppon hys abhomynable
liwing and extortions by hym commyttyd, also
many wronges to divers myserable persens don,
whyche evidently duthe apere by bylles corro-
boratt to be trwe with ther othes corporal, in the
presens of the commissionars and the said abbott
takyn, and opon the same xvi witnessys exa-
mynyd, affermyng ther exclamations to be trwe.’
‘The commissioners concluded by stating that
they had ‘remowyed hym from the rewlle of
hys abbacie and admynistration of the same.’

The coavent refused to accept the deprivation
as canonical, and did not proceed to elect a
successor. On 13 September * another com-
mission was issued, addressed to the Abbots of
Fountains and Byland, recounting that the
abbacy of Rievaulx was vacant owing to the
deposition of the late abbot by four of the royal
commissioners, and that the licence of the Earl
of Rutland, the patron, had been given for the
election of a new abbot. The commissioners
were ordered ‘to repaire unto the sayd monas-
terie to procure, by all the lawfull means and
ways ye can, the convent of the same to proceed
with the licence of our sayd cousin, theyr patron,
to the election of a new abbote, and to certifie
unto us all that ye and the sayd convent shall
have doon therein, for that we moche desyre
the goode establishement of the sayd monasterye
as we doo of all others.’

The Abbot of Fountains being engaged on a
mission to Cockersand Abbey, the Abbot of
Byland reported that on 15 October,” accom-

” Rievaulx Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), Introd. p. Ixxxi.
7 Ibid. Introd. pp. ciii—ix.

* Yorks. Star Chamb. Proc. (Yorks. Rec. Ser.), 48.
” Ibid. 49.

151

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

panied by Brian Lewty, notary, Dan Robert
Harom, Prior of Byland, and Dan Thomas
Wenesley ‘my chapleyn,’ he had visited Rievaulx,
‘and did procure by all the lawfull means and
wayes I couth the convent of the same to pro-
ceed to the election of a new abbcte, and theym
beyng in nombre xxiij™ secretly and oon by oon,
did call before me, the abbote beyng absent, and
then examynyng by inquisicion according to the
statutes of my religion, exortyd, aduertysed, and
induced as byfore to proceed to election according
to the tenor and effect of youre sayd grace is
commission, soo that none of theym did know
what was the answer of the other.” Only seven
of the twenty-three monks would consent to a
fresh election or admit that Abbot Kirkby had
been duly deprived. The detailed answers of
each of the monks are given in the Abbot of
Byland’s report,”? and they evince the courage
and constancy of monks.

Abbot Kirkby, without admitting the validity
of his deprivation, appears to have acquiesced
in his forcible removal, and even went so far as
to precent the Te Deum at the installation of
Robert Blyton, Abbot of Rufford, as Abbot of
Rievaulx.4 This forcible intrusion of Abbot
Blyton was only effected after a further letter
had been sent to the Abbots of Fountains and
Byland ordering them to procure the election of
a new Abbot of Rievaulx at once.”

A yearly pension of £44 was confirmed to
Abbot Kirkby by the convent on 7 May 1534,
but from two letters written by him to Crom-
well®® it appears that Abbot Blyton refused to
pay the pension, and endeavoured to excuse the
convent from an obligation to pay more than
half the promised sum. In these letters Abbot
Kirkby speaks of himself as ‘ Abbott of Rievall ’
(one indeed being signed ‘Edward Abbott a
Rievall ’), and of Blyton as ‘the Incumbent Abbott
at Rievall.’ Inclosed in the second letter is a tran-
script of a letter which Cromwell had previously
written to Blyton, and which Abbot Kirkby
asked him to enforce. In this letter Cromwell
is made to say that if Blyton continued to with-
hold the appointed pension, ‘and handle your
saide predecessour after such extreme fascion
then vpon hys forther complaint to the Kynge
and hys cowncell of his iniuryes and wronges
end also iniuste depriving from hys saide Abbaye
I assure youe I can no less doo of good conscience
and equitie then to fynde some meanes to
restore hym to hys abbaye agayne like as I have
heretofore written to youe in that behalfe.’ It
has been commonly believed that Abbot Kirkby

® Yorks Star Chamb. Proc. (Ycrks. Rec. S:r.), 49-51.

* Ricvaulx Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), Introd. Pp: cili-ix.

* Thid.

** Misc. Letters, temp. Henry VIII (Ser. 2), XXxv,
76-8. The letters are undated and are placed in the

Calendar under the year 1534, but must have been
written a year or two later.

suffered death at ‘I'yburn for complicity in the
Pilgrimage of Grace, and it is pleasant to find
that this was not the case. His later history is
unknown.

The value of the temporalities in 1291 was
£241 105."7 and in 1535 the gross income
amounted to £351 145. 6d., the clear annual
value being £278 10s. 2d. The house was
surrendered on 3 December 1538.” At the
suppression there were twenty-one monks in
addition to the abbot who received yearly pen-
sions, varying from £7 135. 4d. to £4, the
abbot’s pension being 100 marks.*° At the
inquiry *1 as to the payment of pensions in the
North Riding thirteen names are entered. Of
one (Richard Jenkynson) it is said ‘is dead, how
long of goo it is to be inquired, he died at
London ut dicitur.’ Three others appeared with
their patents and were seriously behind, ‘and
did axe it and cold not gett it.’ Six others
appeared, and three did not.

Although there is no record of any indult to
the Abbots of Rievaulx to wear the mitre, there
is an indication that they possessed this privilege.
In an account of the plate possessed by the
abbey at the Dissolution is included not only a
“crouche’ of silver, but also a ‘mitour of paest
set with perles.’

Appots oF RuiEvAuLx *

William I, 1131, died 1145

Maurice, 1145

[Waltheof ] *4

Aelred, 1147, 1160, 1164, died 1167
Sylvanus,® occurs 1170

Ernald, 1192, resigned 1199

William Punchard, occurs 1201-2, died 1203
Geoffrey (or perhaps Godfrey), 1204

Warin, occurs 1208, died 1211

Helyas, resigned 1215 (Abbot of Melrose 1216)
Henry, 1215, died 1216

William III, 1216, died 1223

Roger, 1224 to 1235, resigned 1239
Leonias, 1239, died 1240

Adam de Tilletai, 1240-60,

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 277.

*® Valor Eccl. v, 144.

* L. and P. Hen VIII, xiii (2), 983.

%° Ibid. xiv (1), 67.

* Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 24. The return
for the North Riding is dated 20 Feb. 1553.

* L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (2), 1172.

* This list is that compiled by Dr. Atkinson,
Rievaulx Chartul. (Surt. Soc.) pp. Ixxxvii, cix. Any
alteration is indicated in the notes.

* Dr. Atkinson throws considerable doubt on the
statement that Waltheof could ever have been Abbot
of Rievaulx. Ibid. p. Ixxxix.

* After Aelred, and before Sylvanus, the lists of abbots
usually include a Roger and a Bernard, both of whom
Dr. Atkinson seems rightly to reject. Ibid. p. xci.

152

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Thomas Stangrief, occurs 1268 *
William IV (de Ellerbeck),°* 1268-75 %7
William Daneby, 1275-85 *

Thomas I, 1286-91

Henry II, 1301

Robert, 1303

Peter, 1307

Henry, occurs 1307 ®

Thomas IT, 1315

Richard, occurs 3 June 1317”
William VI, 1318

William de Inggleby, occurs 1322 4
John I, 1327

William VIII (de Langton), 1332-4
Richard, 1349

John II, occurs 1363 #

William IX, 1365-80

John III, occurs 1380 #

William X, 1409

John IV, occurs 1417 *

William (XI) Brymley, 1419

Henry (III) Burton,** 1423-29
William (XII) Spenser, 1436-49

John (V) Inkeley, 1449 *

William (XIII) Spenser, 1471, 1487“
John (VI) Burton,*? 1489-1510 *
William (XIV) Helmesley, 1513-28

%6 Baildon’s MS. Notes.

36a William de Ellerbeck was abbot before 1305
(Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 179) and contemporary
with Adam de Hustwayt, Abbot of Byland (c. 1270-
83); Egerton MS. 2823, fol. 104.

7 Apparently deposed ; see above.

%8 Abbot in 1279 (see above) ; presumably the Abbot
William who made his profession of obedience in
1275 ; Chartul. of Rievaulx, no. xcvii.

%° Baildon’s MS. Notes.

*” Cal. Pat. 1313-17, p. 697 (omitted by Dr. Atkin-
son).

| Baildon’s MS. Notes.

* Ibid.

“ Ibid. ;

*® Dr. Atkinson inserts an Abbot John between
these, but the Archiepiscopal Register (sed. vac. fol.
321) is definite. A commission was issued, 10 Nov.
1423, to Nicholas, Bishop of Dromore, to bless Brother
Henry Burton, monk of Sawley of the Cistercian
order, elected Abbot of Rievaulx, vacant by the free
resignation of William Brymley (sic) late abbot.

** Commission to John, Bishop of Philippopolis,
8 April 1449, to bless John Ingkelay vice William
Spenser, resigned ; York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol.
4205,

“’ The question whether he was the same person
as Abbot William XII is discussed by Dr. Atkinson
(Rievaulx Chartul. Introd. p. cii), and decided by
him in the negative, but not altogether conclusively.

“6Commission to William, Bishop of Dromore, to
bless John Burton, 29 Jan. 1489-go0 ; York Archiepis.
Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 62.

® Test. Eber. v, 21.

° Commission to John, Bishop of Negropont,
to bless William Hemsley, 18 Nov. 1513; York
Archiepis. Reg. Bainbridge.

8 Ibid.

Edward Kirkby,®! 1530-1533
Rowland Blyton” 1533-8

The 1ath-century ® seal is a vesica with the
abbot seated receiving a confession from one of

his monks. Of the legend there only remains :
HH... NN... ERTI A TEGO... .. CLAVSA
REVELO

An abbot’s seal‘ in use at the end of the
12th century is a vesica, 1din. by 1 in., with
the abbot seated reading at a lectern and holding
his crozier. ‘The legend is :

HH sIGNVM ABBATIS RIEVALLIS

A 13th-century abbot’s seal®® has a full-
length figure of the abbot holding his crozier
and a book. ‘The legend is :

HH SIGILLVM ABBATIS DE RIEVALLE

27. THE ABBEY OF ROCHE

The abbey of Roche derived its name ‘de
Rupe’ from a supposed miraculous sculpture of a
crucifix, found by one of the monks on a rock,
adjacent to which the monastery was afterwards
built.) It was the joint foundation of Richard
de Buili and Richard Fitz Turgis, who gave
two adjoining sites, divided by a small stream,
agreeing with each other that both should be
accounted founders, irrespective of the position
selected for the abbey buildings.

The site actually selected was that granted by
Richard de Buili on the Maltby side of the
stream, and the monks who colonized it came
from Newminster, the abbot of which, in con-
sequence, became the pater abbas of Roche.?

On 7 April 1186 Pope Urban II confirmed
to Osmund, the fifth abbot, and his monks
some twenty gifts of land, in addition to the
sites given for the building of the abbey by the
two co-founders.

John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, regarding
the magnificence of the stonework of the abbey,
and also the paucity of its monks, gave the
church of Hatfield to the abbey for the main-

5) Deprived 1533 ; Yorks. Star Chamb, Proc. (Yorks.
Rec. Ser.), 48—51. See also Rievaulx Chartul. (Surt.
Soc.), Introd. pp. citi—ix.

* Formerly Abbot of Rufford.

3 Cat. of Seals, B.M.+3905, lxxv, 1.

* Ibid. 3906 ; Cott. Chart. v, 13.

5 Ibid. 3909, xlvii, 675.

' Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 505.

?John de Buili confirmed his father’s gift, and
allowed the monks to inclose the land between
‘Maltebi’ (Maltby) and ‘Sanbec’ (Sandbeck) except
two roads, viz. ‘ Bolgate’ and the road from Blida
(Blythe) ; B.M. Add. Chart. 20583.

3 153 20

A HISTORY OF

tenance of thirteen additional monks,? and on
13 May 1346% Archbishop Zouch made a
formal appropriation of Hatfield Church to the
abbey, and ordained a perpetual vicarage in the
church. Hatfield Church was the only spirituality
which the abbey of Roche possessed.® The
abbey also obtained many other gifts of land
and other properties, which are set out alpha-
betically in detail by Burton.°

Not much is known of the internal affairs of
the house until the period of the Dissolution.
The patronage, which had descended to John
son of William Lyvett of Hooton Levitt, was
sold on 20 February 1377-8 to Richard Barry,
citizen and merchant of London.’ In 1380-1
the abbot was taxed at 45s. odd., Hugh Bastard
was prior, and he and twelve other monks
forming the convent were taxed at 35. 4d. each ;
there was one conversus taxed at 12d. At the
time of Pope Nicholas’s taxation, a century
earlier, the only spirituality was Hatfield Church,
valued at £46 135. 4d., while the temporalities
amounted to £138 11s. rod. In the Valor
Ecclesiasticus, the church of Hatfield was set
down at {41 145. 8d., and the temporalities at
£220 45. 8d., making a total of £260 195. 4d.
Among the ‘ Elemosina’ was £1 distributed every
Maundy Thursday, 29s. for wax daily burnt before
the sacrament of the altar, of the foundation of
Richard Furnival, and 5s. yearly on the obit of
Thomas de Bellewe.

Drs. Layton and Legh reported in 1536 that
pilgrimage was made to the image of the
crucifix discovered (as it was believed) in the
rock, and that it was held in veneration.
Charges of gross immorality, as usual, were
brought against five of the monks,’ and another
monk, John Robynson, suspected of treason, was
imprisoned at York, but his signature is appended
to the deed of surrender with those of the other
seventeen monks, who with their abbot were
supposed to have signed the document in the
chapter-house on 23 June 1538.°

The abbot was assigned £33 6s. 8d. as his
yearly pension, and was to have his books, the
fourth part of the plate, the cattle and household
stuff, a chalice and vestment and £30 in money
at hisdeparture. The sub-prior (Thomas Twell)
received a pension of £6 145. 8d. and the
bursar (John Dodesworth), one of the monks
charged with gross misconduct in the notorious

* Dugdale, Mon. <Angl v, 502 n.;
1345-8, p. 16.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 13.

* It is remarkable that in the taxation of 1291
the church of Hatfield is set down as appropri-
ated to Roche Abbey ; Pope Nich. Tax (Rec. Com.),
299.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 319-23.

” Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 501.

*L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, p. 138.

* Ibid. xiii (1), 1248.

Cal. Pat.

YORKSHIRE

comperta, £6. Eleven other monks who were
priests received £5 each; and four novices 66s, 8d.
each.)

By far the most important and interesting
document relating to Dissolution times is a
graphic account of the despoiling of the monas-
tic buildings, written in 1591."' No doubt it
describes scenes which, with varying details,
took place all over the country after the dissolu-
tion of the religious houses.

So soon [the account reads] as the Visitors were
entred within the gates, they called the Abbot and
other officers of the House, and caused them to
deliver up to them all their keys and took an inven-
tory of all their goods both within doors and without ;
for all such beasts, horses, sheep, and such cattle as
were abroad in pastures or grange places, the Visitors
caused to be brought into their presence : and when
they had done so, turned the Abbot with all his con-
vent and household forth out of doors.

Which thing was not a little grief to the Convent,
and all the servants of the House departing one from
another, and especially such as with their conscience
could not break their profession ; for it would have
made a heart of flint to have melted and wept to have
seen the breaking up of the House, and their sorrow-
ful departing, and the sudden spoil that fell the same
day of their departure from the House. And every
person had every good thing cheap, except the poor
Monks, Friars, and Nuns, that had no money to
bestow of anything : as it appeared by the suppression
of an Abbey hard by me, called the Roche Abbey, a
House of White Monks: a very fair builded House,
all of freestone ; and every house vaulted with free-
stone and covered with lead (as the Abbeys was in
England as well as the Churches be). At the break-
ing up whereof an Uncle of mine was present, being
well acquainted with certain of the monks there...
But such persons as afterward bought their corn and
hay or such like, found all the doors either open, or
the locks and shackles plucked away, or the door
itself taken away, went in and took what they found,
filched it away. Some took the Service Books that
lied in the Church, and laid them upon their wain
coppes to piece the same : some took windows of the
Hayleith and hid them in their hay ; and likewise
they did of many other things: for some pulled forth
the iron hooks out of the walls that bought none,
when the yeomen and the gentlemen of the country
had bought the timber of the Church. For the
Church was the first thing that was put to the spoil ;
and then the Abbot’s lodging, Dorter, and Frater,
with the cloister and all the buildings thereabout
within the Abbey walls ; for nothing was spared but
the oxhouses and swinecoates, and such other house of
office, that stood without the walls ; which had more
favour showed them than the very Church itself:
which was done by the advice of Cromwell, as Fox
reporteth in his Book of Acts and Monuments. It
would have pitied any heart to see what tearing up
of lead there was, and plucking up of boards, and
throwing down of the sparres: when the lead was

” Tbid. (2), App. 25.

4 Ellis, Orig. Letters (Ser. 3), ili, 32-4, from Miss
Graham, St. Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines,
199-202.

154

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

torn off and cast down into the Church, and the
tombs in the Church all broken (for in most abbeys
were divers noble men and women, yea and in some
Abbeys, Kings, whose tombs were regarded no more
than the tombs of all other inferior persons: for to
what end should they stand, when the Church over
them was not spared for their cause), and all things
of price either spoiled, caryed away, or defaced to the
uttermost.

The persons that cast the lead into the fodders,
plucked up all the seats in the choir, wherein the
monks sat when they said service, which were like to
the seats in minsters, and burned them and melted
the lead therewith all: although there was wood
plenty within a flight shot of them; for the Abbey
stood among the woods and the rocks of stone: in
which rocks was pewter vessels that was conveyed
away and there hid ; that it seemeth that every per-
son bent himself to filch and spoil what he could:

* yea, even such persons were content to spoil them, -

that seemed not two days before to allow their
religion and do great worship and reverence at their
Mattins, Masses, and other Service, and all other
their doings : which is a strange thing to say, that
they that could this day think it to be the House of
God, and the next day the House of the Devil ; or
else they would not have been so ready to have spoiled
it. For the better proof of my saying, 1 demanded of
my father, thirty years after the Suppression, which
had bought part of the timber of the Church, and all
the timber in the steeple, with the bell-frame, with
others his partners therein (in the which steeple hung
vill, yea ix bells ; whereof the least but one could not
be bought at this day for xx", which bells I did see
hang there myself more than a year after the Suppres-
sion), whether he thought well of the Religious
persons and of the Religion then used? And he told
me, Yea: for, said he, I did see no cause to the con-
trary. Well, said I, then how came it to pass that
you was so ready to destroy and spoil the thing that
you thought well of? What should I do? said he.
Might I not as well as others have some profit of the
spoil of the Abbey ? for I did see all would away ; and
therefore I did as others did.

Appots OF RocHE

Durand (first abbot), 30 July 1147, ruled
twelve years

Denis (1159), ruled twelve years

Roger de Tickhill (1171), ruled eight years

Hugh de Wadworth (1179), ruled five years

Osmund (1184), ruled twenty-nine (?) years

Reynold (1213 ?), occurs 1223,” ruled fifteen
years

Richard (1228 ?), occurs
ruled sixteen years

Walter (1244 ?), occurs 1246-7, ruled four-
teen years

Alan (1258 ?)

Jordan

Philip, occurs 1276-7 ¥

1229, 1240-1,

? Lincs. Fines, 165.

3 Pat. 5 Edw. I, m. 18d. All the preceding
names are derived from the ‘Successio Abbatum,’
printed from the copy in St. Mary’s Tower (Dugdale,

Robert, occurs 1280-1, 1282

Thomas, confirmed 1286

Stephen,’* confirmed 3 November 1286, occurs
12 gts

Robert,” confirmed 18 December 1299

John,® confirmed 30 May 1300

William,” confirmed 9 December 1324

Adam de Gykeleswyk,” confirmed 4 Novem-
ber 1330

John,”! occurs 1341

Adam,” confirmed 1347 (?)

Simon de Bankwell,** confirmed 25 October

1349

John de Aston,” confi-‘med 1358

John de Dunelmia,” occurs 1364

Robert *° de Kesseburg,”” elected 1396, occurs.
14048

William,” occurs 1413, 1438

John Wakefield,® confirmed 1438

Mon. Angl. v, §05,n0. xiv). A thirty-nine years’ rule
is assigned to Abbot Osmund, which would bring the
date of the accession of Reynold (who ruled fifteen
years) to 1223, and the accession of Richard, the
immediate successor of Reynold, to the year 1238.
It is known, however, that Abbot Richard was in
office in 1229 (Caf Pat. 1225-32, p. 305). Pro-
bably xxxix is an error for xxix, as the number of
years during which Abbot Osmund was abbot. This
seems to bring all into order, and is therefore followed.
This document also states that in the abbacy of Hugh
de Waddeworth the house became heavily indebted
to the Jews, and that in the time of Osmund the
fifth abbot, who had been cellarer of Fountains, King
Richard released tv the house 1,300 marks owed to
the Jews.

M4 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 183.

% Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 501.

York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 11, 29.

16a Cal Close, 1288-96, p. 323.

1” York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 8.

18 Thid. fol. 42.

19 Tbid. Melton, slip between fol. 162 and 163.

0 Ibid. slip between fol. 187 and 188.

71 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 184.

7 York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, slip between fol.
118 and 119.

3 Thid. fol. 13.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, Sot.

York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 131. There
appears to have been a sentence of the papal court
(not here recorded) in a case of John de Dunelmia,
‘se asserens abbatem monasterii de Rupe,’ against
a certain brother John de Retford, ‘pro monacho
dicti monasterii se gerentem.’ It looks as if John
de Retford had done harm to the goods of the
monastery and its abbatial dignity, besides molesting
John de Dunelmia. It may have been a dispute as
to the priorship, but the entry in the Register does.
not say. The archbishop was one of the commis-
sioners delegated to pronounce the sentence of the
court.

6 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 501.

7 Test. Ebor. i, 213.

8 Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 626.

9 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 183.

39 York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 392.

155

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

John Gray,” confirmed 1465, resigned 1479

William Tykell,** 1479

Thomas Thurne,® 1486

William Burton,** confirmed 29 February
1488

John Merpath,** confirmed 1491

John Heslington,** confirmed 1503

Henry Cundal, last abbot

The 15th-century seal*’ is a vesica, 2 in. by
1d in. It is much damaged. The device
appears to be a figure of our Lady, the patron
saint. The legend cannot be read.

A seal ® of a 13th-century abbot is a vesica,
1% in. by rf in., with a full length figure of him,
holding crozier and book, between on either
side a crescent and two stars. The legend is:

HH SIGILLVM ABBATIS DE RVPE

28. THE ABBEY OF SAWLEY

Sawley Abbey was founded by William Percy
II, son of Alan Percy the Great? on 6 January
1147-8,’ when Abbot Benedict with twelve
monks and ten conversi came from Newminster.

Dr. Whitaker,’ however, has printed a charter
from the Towneley MSS. (which is not free
from certain difficulties), according to which
Swain the son of Swain had sold to Robert
Abbot of Newminster 11 carucates in ‘Sallaia’
and land and wood beyond Suaneside and
Cliderow,* for the foundation of an abbey of
the Cistercian order,

_In the foundation charter® William de Percy
states that he has given to God and the church
of St. Mary, and to Benedict the abbot and the
monks of the abbey of Mount St. Andrew,
which he had built, Sawley and ‘ Dudelant,’ and
‘ Helwinesthorp’ and all their appurtenances, as
well as a carucate in Rimington, which Norman
the son of Huchtred had given them, and two
bovates in ‘Hilleclaia,’ given by Robert his
steward, which two latter gifts he confirmed.

Forty years ® later a question arose whether the
monks would not have to abandon Sawley, owing

* York Archiepis. Reg. Geo. Nevill, fol. 11.

% Tbid. L. Booth, fol 104.

3 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 501.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 2924

8° Thid. fol. 241,

%° Ibid. Savage, fol. 96.

* Cat. of Seals, BLM. 3917, Ixxv, 3.

Ibid. 3918, Ixxii, 99.

‘Whitby Chartul. 688, n. 7; Dugdale, Mon. Angl.
vy, 516, no. xxii.

* Harl. MS. 112 (Chartulary of Sawley), fol. 1.

® Hist. of Craven, 36.

* Dr. Whitaker’s suggestion that Cliderow is probably
an error for Grindleton seems not unlikely.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 512.

* Ibid. no. v, ‘per quadraginta annos et amplius.’

to their inability to obtain the necessary susten-
ance from the land, the climate being so cloudy
and wet that the crops, when white unto
harvest, rotted on the stalk. The Abbot of
Clairvaux and the abbots visitors of the house had
the matter in consideration, when Maud de
Percy, Countess of Warwick, daughter of tne
founder, in order to save the abbey from demoli-
tion or removal, granted the monks the church
of St. Mary of Tadcaster with the chapel of
Hazlewood, and an annual pension from the
chapel of Newton, and a carucate of land at
Catton (‘in qua secundum carnem nata fui’),
William Percy, who according to the Genea-
logia Perciorum,' printed in the Aonasticon, in the
account of Sawley, was the great-grandson of the
founder, granted his manor of Gisburn in Craven

.to the abbot and convent, for the maintenance of

six monks, who were to be priests, in the abbey,”
and in 1313 ® his son Henry de Percy, consider-
ing their poverty, gave to the abbot and con-
vent the church of St. Andrew of Gargrave.
Its value had been 50 marks, but owing to the
Scottish wars was in 1320 only 30 marks.
Many other grants were made to the abbey,
and several of the deeds relating to them are
printed in the Aonasticon.

Unlike other houses of the Cistercian order,
the situation of that of Sawley was not secluded,
but was by the highway passing north and south.
In consequence of this the monks had to show
more hospitality to travellers than was perhaps
the lot of other houses, and it was specially
exposed to the raids made by the Scots.

In 1296" Stanley Abbey was removed to
Whalley, not far from Sawley, and this led to a
complaint that the new position of the abbey at
Whalley was prejudicial to Sawley, and moreover
was in contravention of the customs of the
Cistercian order. The monks of Sawley further
complained” that the monks of Whalley had
obtained a lease of the tithes of the church of
Whalley, which the monks of Sawley had
hitherto farmed for their maintenance ; that the
monks of Whalley went round Craven and
bought in the Abbot of Sawley’s market all kinds
of grain, and had thus raised the price of grain;
and not only had they to pay a higher price, but
they had to carry the grain over 40 or 60 miles
of very bad road. Butter and cheese, fish,
poultry, salt, iron, &c., since the coming of the
monks to Whalley, were sold dearer to the
monks of Sawley. The timber, with which the
monks of Sawley ought to build and keep up
their buildings, was dearer because the monks of
Whalley were building, and intended to build for

"Ibid. v, 11 n.

"* Percy Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), 145.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 512, no. iv.

* Harland, Hist. Acct. of Salley Abbey, 8.
° Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 512-15.

" Ibid. 639. ” Ibid. 641.

156

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

the future, and the sellers of bark (tanae) in those
parts, hoping that the monks of Whalley were
going to have a big tannery, charged more for
bark, in consequence of which the tannery of
Sawley was almost destroyed. It may be noted,
in passing, that the need of purchasing grain
confirms the report of the infertile character of
the land about Sawley at that period.

This complaint was dealt with in a general
chapter of the Cistercian order in 1305,)8 when
it was decided that if the monks or conversi of
either abbey transgressed against the other, the
delinquents were, without delay, to be sent to
the injured party to be punished in chapter there,
at the judgement of the president. If the monks
of Whalley had any saleable tithes (decimas
venales) which the Abbot and convent of Sawley
considered needful for their use, they should be
as speedily and freely sold to them as to other
persons, but for the price which others would
give. The decision might reasonably be expected
to have given rise to continual disputes between
the two monasteries. There is, however, no
evidence that any further disputes actually arose.

On 19 September 1306,'* for some reason
which so far has not been discovered, Archbishop
Greenfield passed sentence of excommunication
on John de Houeden, abbot, John de Eton,
prior, William de Stokesleye, sub-prior, Robert
de Kereby, cellarer, Henry de Bolton, sub-
cellarer, John Tempest, sacrist, Richard de Ebor,
sub-sacrist, John de Semer, frater conversorum,
Richard de Edesford, bursar, William de Osbal-
{ton ...?], William de Nodesaye, porter, Robert
de Fontibus (conversus), hostilar, Simon de Lytton
(conversus), master of the Forest, Roger de Hoton,
master of Tadcaster, and Roger de Crathorn,
master of Bereghby.

In 1350 Pope Clement VI, who in 1343
had ordered that the Jubilee at Rome, first
observed in 1300, should be kept every fiftieth
year, issued a grant to a monk of Sawley,
Richard de Fishwyk, to return to his monastery,
which he had left without leave, in order to
visit Rome for the general indulgence of the
Jubilee of that year. In 13817 the receipts of
the abbey appear to have been £347 145. 74d.,
and the expenditure £355 135. 103d. At that
time” there were in the abbey besides the
abbot sixteen other monks. At the suppression
there were twenty-one monks and thirty-seven
servants. In 14121° the abbot and convent
obtained an indult from Pope John XXIII to

3 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 641.

4 York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 762; see also
fol. 572.

® Cal. of Papal Letters, iii, 382.

16 Harland, Hist. Acct. of Salley Abbey, 25 ; quoting
Whitaker.

” Subs. R. 63, no. 12.

18 K.R. Aug. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

® Cal. of Papal Letters, vi, 391.

eat flesh meat on lawful days, whenever they
left their monastery for reasonable causes.

The Abbots of Sawley were summoned to
Parliament on nine occasions from 1294 to
1307.% According to the Taxatio of 1291,
the spiritualities of the abbey were the church
of Tadcaster, valued at £36 135. 4d., and that
of Gargrave, valued at £33 6s. 8d. The tem-
poralities of the abbey were valued at £54 10s.”!

There is no full account of the possessions
of Sawley in the Valor Ecclesiasticus, merely a
statement that the clear annual value, in spiritu-
alities and temporalities, reached the sum of
£147 35. 10d? A rather earlier return, made
in 1522-3," gives the clear annual value at
£159 16s. 7d. Sawley Abbey, therefore, came
within purview of the earlier Act, 27 Henry VIII,
cap. 28, which dissolved all the monasteries
whose annual revenue was below {200. In
1536 ** Thomas Bolton was abbot, but William
Trafford must have succeeded him in that year,
for he took part as abbot (with his prior) in the
Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536.% ‘There is no
record of his election in the York Registers, and
it was possibly never formally confirmed. On
10 March 1537 * he was hanged at Lancaster
for high treason. Abbot Trafford” belonged to
an old Lancashire family, and was the second
son of Sir John Trafford of Trafford, by Eliza-
beth daughter of Sir Thomas Assheton of
Ashton-under-Lyne.

Among the Suppression Papers ** one records
the ‘goodes praysed at Sawlaye and gyven by
the Kinges highnes unto Sir Arthur Darcy
Knight’ as follows: ‘Belles, lead, vestymentes
and copes, and other necessaries praysed unto’
£109 10s. 11d. ‘Item. Corne in the garners,
and in the ffeldes” £62 15s. 4d.; total
£172 6s. 3d. In another paper, much of which
is lost,” the total of the stock and goods reaches
the sum of £300 125. 7d.

ABBOTS OF SAWLEY

Benedict, 1147 *°

Geoffrey de Eston, 1186 *!
Adam, before 1193 *

Stephen, occurs 1226,°* 1230 %

” Harland, Hist. Acct. of Salley Abbey, 43.
Ibid. 36.

* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 144.

3 Subs. R. 64, no. 300.

* Aug. Off. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

* Harland, Hist. Acct. of Salley Abbey, 48.

6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 47.
*% Suppression P. iii, no. 62. *® Thid. 75.
8 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, S11. 31 Tbid.

* Harland, Hist. Acct. of Salley Abbey, 42 (temp.
Robt de Lacy, who died that year).

3 Archbp. Grey’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 328.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 85 ; as a
witness, ‘S.’

157

A HISTORY

Walter, occurs c. 1236 *

Warin, occurs 1246,°° 1255

William (#) 3”

Hugh, occurs 1265,** 1269 *

Thomas, occurs 1278,*° 1280,*! 1290,% de
Driffield *

Roger, occurs 1299, 1302 *°

John de Houedon, confirmed 1303,*° excom-
municated 1306,* absolved 1313 *

John de Heton, confirmed 1321 *

John, occurs 1351, John de Gisburne, 1354 7

Geoffrey, occurs 1366

John, occurs 1372," 1381," 1394"

William, 1418

William, occurs 1433,°° 1443,” William de
Ingylton, died 1453 *8

Thomas Bradley, 1453,°° died 1467 ©

HOUSES

29. THE PRIORY OF BASEDALE
Licence was granted ‘about the year 1162’?
by Adam de Brus, as chier lord, to Ralph de
Nevill, to found ‘an abbey of nuns’ at Hutton,
near Guisborough? Ernald de Percy? also
granted to Ralph de Nevill the gift which he
had made to the nuns of Hutton of land and a
mill in ‘Torp.’

Nothing is known of the house at Hutton,
where it cannot have long remained, and the
allusion to the grant of land at ‘ Torp’ indicates,
perhaps, its actual removal, thus early in its
career, to Thorp, afterward and yet known as
Nunthorpe.

* Anct. D. (P.R.O.), A.317; is a co-witness with
Sir Richard, then Abbot of Roche. For reasons
stated under Roche Abbot Richard’s date has been
put at 1228-44.

% Percy Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), §2.

7 Tbid. go.

* Whitaker, Hist. of Craven, 56.

* Feet of F. Trin. 53 Hen. II, file 53, no. 20.

"Ibid. file 60, no. 116, 132.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 511.

“ Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 199.

“ Thid. * Thid.

“© York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 164.

“ Ibid. Greenfield, fol. 574.

“6 Ibid. fol. 764.

* Ibid. Melton, slip between fol. 152 and 153.

° Cal. of Papal Letters, iii, 407.

*! Thid. 534.

* Harland, Hist. Acct. of Salley Abbey, 42, who
says that he was sponsor to Thomas Mowbray, Earl
of Nottingham, in that year.

® Harl. MS. 112, fol. 51 d.

*“ Harland, Hist. Acct. of Salley Abbey, 42.

“@ Harl. MS. 112, fol. 107 d.

* Ibid. ; but query whether he was prior only.

OF YORKSHIRE

Robert Wode, 1467 ©

William Holden, confirmed 1468 ©

Richard, occurs 1480 %

Thomas Burton, confirmed 1502“

Henry Hammond, occurs 1506

Thomas Bolton, confirmed 1527, occurs
1 January 1536

William Trafford, 1537 ® last abbot

A 12th-century seal ® of the abbot is a small
vesica, 18 in. by 1 in., showing his figure at full
length holding crozierand book. The legend—

iS] SIGILLVM ABBATIS DE SALLIA

is carelessly cut, the two last words being
reversed.

OF CISTERCIAN NUNS

According to the Monasticon, ‘toward the
latter part of the reign of King Henry the second
by the benefaction of Guido de Bovingcourt they
settled at Basedale, in the parish of Stokesley.’*
It must have been quite at the end of the reign
of Henry II, or even at the beginning of that of
Richard I, that the move was made to Basedale,
for among the witnesses to Guy de Bovingcourt’s
charter are Peter, Abbot of Whitby, and Raold,
Prior of Guisborough. Though the nuns
removed from Nunthorpe they still retained their
property there until the Dissolution.

In Guy de Bovingcourt’s gift to the nuns, for
the souls of Robert Bovingcourt, Bernard de
Baliol, and his own, &c., is no mention of
Basedale, but only of Stokesley and Westerdale,
within whose bounds Basedale lies.®

Burton’ has compiled an alphabetical list of
the property of the nuns, a great portion of
which had been confirmed to them by Henry III
in 1245-6.8

5° Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 190.

*’ Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 511.

5° York Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 3814.

* Ibid. An account of his election was sent to the
archbishop by the Abbot of Newminster.

® Ibid. G. Nevill, fol. 154.

* Thid. * Ibid. fol. 1084.

Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 511.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 894.

Harland, Hist. Acct. of Salley Abbey, 42.

* Aug. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

* Harland, Hist. Acct. of Salley Abbey, 48.

® Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3965, Ixxv, 5.

’ Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 507.

* Ibid. 508, no. i.

3 Tbid. no. ill. ‘Ibid. 507.

5 Ibid. 509, no. viii. ° Ibid.

” Burton, Mon. Ebor. 250, 251.

8 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 508, no. vi.

158

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Basedale nunnery was situated about 8 miles
from the parish church of Stokesley, and
Isabella the prioress® obtained from the abbot
{Robert de Longchamp) and the monks of
St. Mary’s, York, the patrons of Stokesley Church,
with consent of Gerald the parson of Stokesley,
the right to have a cemetery at Basedale, in
which the nuns, sisters and conversi who had
assumed their habit at Basedale might be buried,
but all their servants and men were to be
buried at Stokesley, and were to receive the
sacraments at the mother church.

In the Taxatio of 1291 Basedale was valued
at only £5 6s. 6d.," by far the least of any
house in Cleveland. In the Valor LEcclesiasticus
the clear annual value was only £20 15. 4d."

On 17 May 1304” Archbishop Corbridge
committed the custody of the goods of the nuns
of Basedale to Roger de Kelleshay, rector of
Crathorne. ‘Troubles soon afterwards arose in
the house, which culminated in an order (dated
15 May 1307) for the deprivation of the
prioress (Joan de Percy) on account of her
dilapidation of the goods of the house, and her
excesses and perpetual and notorious misdeeds
(crimina). "The name of her successor is un-
known, but on 13 September ™ in the same year
the archbishop granted her licence to have her
meals in her own chamber on Sundays and the
third and fourth ferias in each week. Joan
de Percy then had left the house, taking with
her some of the nuns, and on 21 September *
the archbishop wrote to the official of York to
warn Joan and the others that they were
to return without delay, and not to go outside
the precincts (septa) of the monastery, but sery-
ing God in the cloister under the yoke of obedi-
ence, were in humility to take heed to the salu-
tary monitions of their prioress. In July in the
year following ’® the archbishop wrote to the
Prioress and convent of Sinningthwaite, send-
ing Joan de Percy to them, as she had been
guilty of disobedience at Basedale.” On
13 October 1308 !8 the archbishop wrote to the
prioress and convent regarding the miserable
state of Agnes de Thormondby, one of their
nuns, concerning whom he had heard that, on
, three separate occasions, she had yielded carnis

® Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. v, 509, no. vii. As Robert
ce Longchamp was abbot from 1197, and as Susanna
was prioress about 1230 (Whitby Chartul. i, 233) the
date of the concession must have been c. 1197-1230.

1° Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 325.

" Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 87.

York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 29.

8 Tbid. Greenfield, i, fol. 88.

4 Tbid. fol. 884. ® Ibid. 16 Thid. fol, go.

7 A commission had been issued on 3 Feb. 1308
for the visitation of Basedale and other houses, and it
was at this visitation, of which no other particulars
are given, that Joan de Percy’s disobedience was re-
sealed (ibid. fol. 954).

8 Thid. fol. 93.

decepta blandiciis, and left her order. They were
to take her back, as she returned humbly and
in a contrite spirit, and to impose on her the
salutary penance of their rule.

On Wednesday after the feast of St. Michael
1315,!° Archbishop Greenfield held a visitation
of Basedale, when he issued a series of injunc-
tions which are practically the same as others
directed at the same time to Handale, the two
being almost word for word the same, from
which it may be inferred that they throw little
or no light on the internal affairs of either house,
being couched very much in what, in legal
language, is known as ‘common form.’ From
the general character of the injunctions it may
be assumed that the little nunnery had resumed
its normal state of peace, and that nothing was
then seriously amiss.

Troubles, however, again arose, and on
18 March 1343 %° Archbishop Zouch issued a
commission to inquire into the truth of the
articles urged against Katherine Moubray, the
prioress, and if her demerits exacted it, to depose
her, unless she resigned. It does not appear
what took place, but only two years later the
archbishop appointed other commissioners, on
3 May 1345,” to inquire into abuses there, and
if necessary depose the prioress, and see to the
election of a successor. The two commissions
following one another so rapidly point to any-
thing but a happy state of affairs.

In June 1359” the prioress desired to resign
owing to her age and debility, and on 9 June
1378 Archbishop Alexander Nevill ordered
John, Prior of Guisborough, to receive the
resignation of Alice Page, probably the prioress
elected in 1359, who from infirmity of age and
weakness of body could no longer govern the
house.

On 13 August 1524 Joan Fletcher, a
nun of Rosedale, was confirmed as Prioress of
Basedale. Her record in her office of prioress is
a bad one, and from fear of deposition she
resigned and also cast aside her habit and left the
house. There are two letters respecting her,
written by Archbishop Lee on 1 September 1534,”
one addressed to the Prioress and convent of
Rosedale, to which after her apostasy she had
been sent back to do penance, and the other
addressed to Basedale. She had set a bad ex-
ample at Rosedale, and shown no sign of true
repentance, so the archbishop transferred her to
Basedale, which she had once ruled as prioress,
that where she had not been ashamed to sin,
there she might lament her sins. He exhorted
the nuns of Basedale to receive her with affec-
tion, but not to permit her to go outside the

9 Thid. ii, fol. 108. *Tbid. Zouch, fol. 154.
1 Ibid. fol. 157. ” Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 177.
23 Tbid. A. Nevill, fol. 41.

* Ibid. Wolsey, fol. 77.

° Yorks. Arch. Fourn. XVl, 432.

159

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

precincts of their monastery without the arch-
bishop’s special licence. Joan Fletcher was
alive at the Suppression,?® when there were,
including her, eleven nuns in the house, which is
described as ‘Prioratus monasterii de Basedale
ordinis Sancti Bernardi Cisterciensis.’ Drs.
Layton and Legh* reported that the nuns had
as it was supposed (ut putatur) the milk of the
Blessed Mary in veneration.

PRIORESSES OF BaAsEDALE

Isabella,?* occurs between 1189 and 1230

Susanna,”? occurs c. 1230

Elena,® occurs 1283

Joan de Percy,® elected 1301

Katherine Moubray,® occurs
1343-4

Alice Page,®* resigned June 1377

Elizabeth Cothom,** confirmed 1460, resigned
1481-2 *

Elizabeth Davell,*® elected March 1481-2,
resigned 1497 *”

Agnes Thomlynson,* elected August 1497

Margaret Bukton,*® elected November 1523

Joan Fletcher, elected August 1524

Elizabeth Raighton,“’ elected 1527

18 March

30. ELLERTON IN SWALEDALE

There is some difference of opinion as to the
date of the foundation of the priory of Ellerton
in Swaledale.’ Dodsworth gives alternative
founders: Warner the chief steward of the
household of the Earl of Richmond, or his son
Wymar, temp. Henry IJ,? and Dr. Burton,
probably relying on this statement, places Eller-

* Suppression P. ii, 15.

"Land P. Hen. VIII, x, p. 137, &c.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 509, no. vii.

* Ubithy Chartul. i, 233.

Feet of F. Yorks. file 61, no. 28 (Hil. 11
Edw. 1).

* York. Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 25.

*Tbid. Zouch, fol. 154. She was not necessarily
deposed then ; the commission was to depose if neces-
sary; another conditional order to depose a prioress (no
name) occurs in 1346 (ibid. fol. 157).

® Ibid. A. Nevill, fol. 41.

*Tbid. W. Booth, fol. 60.

* Tbid. Rotherham, i, fol. 16d.

6 Ibid. 7 Thid. fol. 164.

* Thid. *Tbid. Wolsey, fol. 72d.

“Tbid. fol. 77.

“Ibid. fol. 87 ; a nun of Keldholme.

‘Considerable confusion has arisen in consequence
of there being more than one Ellerton in Yorkshire ;
Ellerton on Spalding Moor, where was a Gilbertine
priory ; Ellerton on Swale, to the south-east of Rich-
mond ; and Ellerton in the parish of Downholme, also
“on Swale,’ where the nunnery was situated.

*Dods. MSS. vii, fol. 30.

ton in his list of foundations of that reign.’ The
first. recorded prioress, Alice, was at the head
of the priory in 1227.4

Confusing this house with the priory of Eller-
ton on Spalding Moor, some writers have called
it a Gilbertine nunnery.’ It was an establishment
of Cistercian nuns,® Leland describing it as ‘a
priori of white clothid nunnes, stonding in a valle

. a mile beneth marik priory.’”

The above-named Alice the prioress was the
respondent in an action brought in 1227 by the
Prior of Kirkham.® The dispute had reference
to the last presentation to the church of Whixley,
but what was the finding is not known, though
the matter was renewed the following year on
5 February 1228 at Westminster.®

In 1274 the little priory had some trouble
with one of the sisters, Maud, the daughter of
Roger de Hunmanby. For some reason or
other she was excommunicated and remained
obdurate. Archbishop Giffard therefore gave
notice of her excommunication to Master Roger
de Seton and his fellow-justices of the King’s
Bench, informing them of her persistent contu-
macy and offence—that she was ‘contemning
the keys of the Church,’—and asking them to
shun and repel her by every legitimate means,
until she came to the primate to seek the benefit
of absolution.”

Of the possessions of this house, ‘one of the
humblest of all monastic foundations,’ ” very
little is known. ‘Two bovates of land in Eller-
ton belonged to it in 1287, and the prioress, it
seems, with the heir of Thomas de Hereford,
held the manor of Ellerton-cum-Stainton.” In
1347 the Scots, making an inroad into Swale-
dale, entered the nunnery and carried away seven
charters and writings ; one of these was a grant
from Robert de Wicliff to Margaret, the prioress
at that time, of anannual rent of 6s. 84.3 At
the Dissolution the revenues of the house were
derived from rents and ferms in Barforth, Bar-
ton, Bellerby, Carlton, Constable Burton,
Hornby, Melsonby, Richmond, Studdow, and
Walburn,* and amounted to £14 145. 8d.
perannum. ‘The value of the priory site with
the gardens, mills, meadows, and glebe an-
nexed to it, was £1. The outgoings were
4s. 2d., leaving a clear balance of £15 105. 6d.
The abbey of Egglestone also paid to the priory
an annual sum of £3 6s. 8d. for the finding
of a chaplain for the chantry founded by
Thomas Cleasby for his own soul and_ those

* Burton, Mon. Ebor.56. ‘* Pat. 12 Hen. III, m.7d.
* See e.g. Murray’s Yorkshire (1904), 365.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 263. *Itin.v, 113.
*Pat. 12 Hen. III, m. 7d. *Ibid. m. 6d.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 133.
"Whitaker, Richmondshire, i, 316.

” Kirkby’s Inquest (Surt. Soc.), 326.

8 Clarkson, Hist. of Richmond, 322.

“ Burton, Mon. Ebor. 263.

160

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

of his heirs.’ From the survey in the Augmen-
tation Office, the total revenue from all sources,
temporal and spiritual, was £21 195. 3d."°

The priory was visited in 1536 by Layton and
Legh,” who returned the ‘founders’ or patrons
at that time as William Aselby, William
Thuresby, and Ralph Spence. It was sur-
rendered in 1537 by Joan, the last prioress.

PrIorEsses OF ELLERTON

Alice, occurs 1227 8

Petronilla, occurs 1251 *

Ellen, occurs 1268 ”

Sibil, occurs 1299 7

Margaret, occurs 1347 ”

Mary Gray, date uncertain **

Alice Sherwood, occurs 6 August 14294
Joan, occurs 1535, last prioress **

31. THE PRIORY OF ESHOLT

The small Cistercian nunnery of St. Mary and
St. Leonard at Esholt, in the parish of Guiseley,
is said to have been founded at the latter part of
the reign of Henry II or the beginning of that of
Richard I by Geoffrey Haget or Simon Ward.’
There is, however, much uncertainty both as to
the real date of the foundation, and as to the
original founder. The Wards were afterwards
the patrons, and at the Dissolution it was said
that the founders were the ancestors of Christo-
pher Ward.?

The nuns of Sinningthwaite received a grant
of the whole of Esholt from the members of the
family of Ward,’ but there is no indication that
Esholt was ever subject to Sinningthwaite, though
perhaps Esholt may have been an independent
offshoot from Sinningthwaite and_ originally
peopled with nuns from the latter place.

A large number of grants of land and con-
firmations are printed in the MMonasticon,’ and
there are several others in the British Museum,
which have not been printed, relating to Esholt.

By the gift of Margaret Clifford, widow, the
house of Esholt became possessed of the church

™ Clarkson, Hist. of Richmond, 321.

6 Ibid.

“L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, p. 142.

*® Pat. 12 Hen. III, m. 7d. :

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, 56.

” De Banco R. 27 Edw. I, m. 142.

* Clarkson, Hist. of Richmond, 325.

° Mon. Ebor. 263,

*Dean and Chap. of York, Parchment Bk. E,
fol. 44.

* Gale, Reg. Hon. de Richmond, App. 91.

* Yorks. Arch. Fourn. ix, 321 n. See also Burton,
Mon. Ebor. 139, for grant of site, &c., at Esholt.

? Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 469.

3 Ibid. ; Burton, Mon. Edor. 139.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 470-4.

* Thid.

of Belton, in the Isle of Axholme, and this gift
was confirmed by Richard II on 1 June 1379.°

In 1303 ° Juliana de la Wodehall, who had
been elected prioress in December 1300, tendered
her resignation to the archbishop, who refused to
accept it, and wrote that he had not been certi-
fied of the state of the house, nor of the reason
which made her desire to resign; he therefore
commanded her to retain the care of the house as
prioress, until he had discussed the state of the
house with the patron, Simon le Ward, or until
he was able to visit those parts. Possibly the
prioress’s desire to resign was due to a recent
scandal which is the subject of a letter addressed
to her and her convent by the archbishop in the
preceding March’ regarding Beatrice de Houkes-
ward, a nun, who had left the house pregnant,
and whom they were not tore-admit without the
archbishop’s special licence. On 22 September
1315 % Archbishop Greenfield wrote to the
Prioress of Esholt peremptorily ordering her to
remove within six days all the secular women
boarders over the age of twelve years, and to
admit no more without special licence. On the
previous day he had confirmed the election of
Isabella de Calverley as prioress.°

In 1318 © Archbishop Melton helda visitation
and issued injunctions to the prioress and nuns.
The house was heavily in debt, and all were
ordered to use moderation. ‘The prioress was
forbidden, under pain of removal, to grant pen-
sions, or to alienate or lease for long periods any
of the granges, nor was she to receive any
person to the habit of the nuns or sisters or
brothers conversi, or to retain as boarders any
women or girls over twelve years of age without
the archbishop’s special licence. “There is a long
silence in the Registers till 1445,)! when Arch-
bishop Kemp granted an indulgence of 100 days,
valid for two years, to all who should help towards
the reparation or new construction of the cam-
panile of the house or priory of the poor nuns of
‘Asshold,’ which recently fell to ruin, or who
should assist in the maintenance and the relief of
the nuns themselves, whose lands near the River
Ayre, which had been cultivated at much cost
and which maintained the nuns, had been flooded.

A dispensation, dated 1 October 1472,” super
defectu natalium, was granted to Joan Ward, nun
of Esholt ; she was afterwards prioress, and was
no doubt connected in some way with the family
of the patron. On 28 November in the same
year’? another Joan Ward made her will, in
which she bequeathed her best gown (togam),

5 Tbid. 471, no. viii.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 18.
7 Ibid. fol. 206.

8 Ibid. Greenfield, ii, fol. 89.

10 Tbid. Melton, fol. 2314.

1 Tbid. Kemp, fol. 98.

1 Thid. Geo. Nevill, fol. 148

® York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 7.

® Ibid.

3 161 21

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

lined with ‘fiches,’ and a gilded girdle, with
white tissue, to be sold, and a vestment bought
with the proceeds for ‘Abbathie de Hashold.’
She also left a pair of coral beads adorned with
“calsedons’ to be sold and the proceeds to be
expended on ‘ the payntyng of an ymage of our
lady de pete at the Abba of Hassholde.’ Yet a
third Joan Ward, the relict of Roger Ward, the
elder, of Givendale, kt., appears at this period.
She made her will 14 November 1473,and left
her body to be buried ‘ infra ecclesiam religiosam
Abbathie de Esholt,’ with 20s. to the prioress and
convent. In 1497'° Joan Ward, the prioress,
resigned, and on 30 August Elizabeth Lasynby
was elected as her successor.

In 1535 8 Dr. Clyf, vicar-general of the arch-
bishop, visited Esholt, and on 10 September the
archbishop sent the prioress and convent a long
list of injunctions in the English language. All
the nuns were to be obedient to their prioress
and observe ‘Sanct Bennett rule which they have
professid.’ The prioress was to provide at once
sufficient locks and keys for the cloister doors, and
the doors were to be securely locked every night
immediately after compline, and not opened again
till seven o’clock the next morning in winter, or six
in summer, A noteworthy order follows, ‘ that
the prioresse suffer no ale-house to be kept within
the precinct of the gates of the saide monasterie.’
Apparently the nuns at Esholt brewed more ale
than they needed and sold the surplus. The
dorter was to be locked every night ‘unto service
tyme.” No manner of person ‘ of what degre so-
ever he be seculer or religiose’ was to be allowed
‘to lie, or to be loged’ within the cloister, or any
chamber opening into it. No sister was to go
out of the precinct of the monastery without some
just cause, and the prioress was to cause some part
of St. Bennett’s rule to be read daily in the
chapter-house, in the presence of all the sisters.

At the back of certain chambers where the
sisters worked on the south side of the church,
there was an open way leading to the waterside
and to the bridge across the water. There was
no wall or door to shut it off, ‘so that many ylles
may be committed by reason hereof; wherfore
in avoydyng such inconveniences that myght
follow yf it shuld so remayne’ the prioress was
ordered ‘incontinent without delay aftre the
recept herof’ to cause a high wall to be built ‘in
the said voyde place.’

The archbishop then dealt with the case of
‘Dame Joanne Hutton nun professed’ who ‘ con-
tarie to her profession and vowe made to all
mighty God, to the great daunger of her sowle,
and yll example of odre religious parsons, hath
lyved incontinentlie and unchast, and hath broght
forth a child of her bodie begotten.’ The arch-

“ York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 74.

** York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 1354,

* These injunctions are printed in full in Yorés.
Arch. Fourn. xvi, 451-3,

bishop therefore, ‘willinge to reforme the same
horrible crime,’ enjoined the prioress to put ‘dame
Joanne’ in prison, or in some secret chamber
within the dorter, and that neither the sisters nor
any person was to speak to her without leave of
the prioress. She was to ‘kepe abstinence ’ every
week, viz. on each Wednesday and Friday to have
bread and ale only, and abstain from all flesh, fish,
butter, eggs, cheese, and milk. On other days
she was to eat ‘as the convent fareth.’ Each
Friday she was to have in the presence of the
sisters such discipline in the chapter-house ‘as ys
accustomed to be hadd and done for like offences’ !”
and the prioress was to keep her in prison and
continue the penance for two years, unless the
archbishop directed otherwise.

At the time of the Suppression there were
eleven nuns.’* Joan Jenkynson, aged forty, the
prioress, heads the list, and received a pension of
£6 135. 4d. Her name is followed by that of
Elizabeth Pudsey, also called ‘ prioress’ (that is
the ex-prioress) ; she was over seventy and is
described as ‘decrepita et non abilis adequitandum,
neque eundum, ben recommendid to hir friends’;
Agnes Bayn (52); Agnes Cokyn (47); Joan
Hollynraker (?) (54) ‘decrepita et non abilis ad
equitandum, neque eundum. Mad. she is not
able to be carried for she is lame, contynew in her
habit with her friends’; Elizabeth Mawde (47) ;
Barbara Dogeson (36); Joan Huton (30);
Joan Burton (27); Agnes Wood (27); Agnes
Dogeson (40). Against each name (except those
of the prioress and the ex-prioress) is written
‘contynew in her religion’ or simply ‘conty-
new.’ !°

The clear annual value cf the house in 1535

was only £13 55. 4d.”

Prroresses oF EsHoit

Agnes, occurs 1219 7

Alice, occurs 1299 7"

Juliana de la Wodehall,” confirmed 1300

Joan de Hartlington *

Isabella de Calverley, elected 1315, occurs
1327," 1349

Isabella de Calverley,” elected 1363

Maud Ward,” occurs 1392

Emma Porter,” occurs 1416

Emma Burgh, occurs 1459 ?*

Surely a significant expression.

® Suppression P. ii, fol. 25, 34, 238d.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 470.

” Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 16.

” Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 57. "2 Thid.
” York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 64.
* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 140.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 89.
* Add. Chart. 16906.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 470, no. i.

*” Ibid. v, 470.

162

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Elizabeth Lasynby,* elected 1475

Joan Ward,* occurs 1480, 1487, 1493,%
resigned 1497 *

Elizabeth Lasynby,® elected 1497

Agnes Firth,*® elected 1505

Margaret Roche,*” elected 1507, resigned
rer2*

Elizabeth Pudsey,* elected 1512

Joan Jenkinson,*° occurs c. 1536

32. THE PRIORY OF HAMPOLE

The priory of Hampole, or Hanepole, was
founded about 11707 by William de Clarefai and
Avice de Tany, his wife,’ whose gift and that of
the churches of Adwick and Melton were con-
firmed by Archbishop Roger (1154-81), which
gives a limit to the date of the foundation.

Roger, the son of Ralph de Tilli and Sibilla de
Clarefai, confirmed to the nuns all the grants and
concessions of his grandmother, Avice de Tany,
and his mother Sibilla, as his brother Ralph had
also by his charter confirmed them to the nuns,

In 1331° William son of William, lord of
Sprotbrough, confirmed in detail the gifts of his
ancestors and other benefactors to the nuns of
Hampole in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.
The nunnery, according to Burton,* who has
given a short and imperfect list of the places
where the nuns had property, stood in a pleasant
vale lying east and west, in a fine country on the
high road leading from Wakefield to Doncaster.
In his time there were some slight remains of the
monastic buildings.

According to the Valr Ecclesiasticus® the gross
annual revenue was {83 6s. 11d., and the clear
value £63 55. 8d.

In 1267 Archbishop Giffard wrote to the
prioress to receive no one as nun or sister with-
out his special leave, as the number then in the
house exceeded its means.

In the following year’ a custos of the house is
mentioned, but no name given.

In February 1275-6 ® the archbishop directed
the nuns with those of the other Cistercian houses
to choose their confessors from the Friars Minor,

8 York Archiepis. Reg. Geo. Nevill, fol. 1723.
53} Burton, Mon. Ebor. 140.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 471, no. xvi.

88 Tbid. no. iil.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 133.
% Tbid. %§ Ibid. Savage, fol. 43.

8’ Thid. sed. vac. fol. 522.

8 Tbid. Bainbridge, fol. 394.

® Thid. “© Suppression P. ii, 25.

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 486.

? Ibid. 487, no. ii. 3 Tbid. no. iii.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 264.

° Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 43.

§ Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. 20.

T Ibid. 160. 8 Ibid. 295.

in spite of an inhibition of the abbots of the order.
His successor, Archbishop Wickwane, in 1280 ®
appointed Richard, vicar of Wath, to the charge
and custody of the house in spiritual and tem-
poral affairs, and in 12831 commissioned the
Prior of Nostell to visit Hampole, but there is
no record of the visitation itself.

The custody of the house was committed in
1308" by Archbishop Greenfield to Roger, vicar
of Arksey, and on 14 June” in the same year
he issued injunctions to the prioress and nuns, in
general terms. No nun, except the Aostilaria,
was to eat or drink in the guest-house, unless with
worthy people, no secular persons were to sleep
in the dormitory, and nobody was to be admitted
to the habit of nun, sister or conversus, without the
archbishop’s special licence. In July 13118 he
wrote to the prioress and convent that he had
lately heard, from certain trustworthy persons,
that the nuns did not eat in common in their
refectory, but separately in divers chambers and
other places; he therefore ordered that they were
to have their meals together, unless perchance any
one was ill, or otherwise legitimately hindered.
In 1312 the archbishop, having at a recent
visitation found that Hampole was heavily bur-
dened by debts, had ordered that no liveries or
corrodies were to be granted without leave. He
had, however, learnt that the prioress had received
a certain little girl (pue//ulam),™ by name Maud
de Driffeld, niece of the Abbot of Roche, and an-
other named Jonetta, her own niece, at the instance
of Dominus Hugh de Cressy her brother, that after
a time they might be admitted to the habit and
profession of nuns of the house, and moreover had
sold or granted corrodies very burdensome to the
house ; the archbishop ordered diligent inquiry as
to these matters. If they were found as stated,
then the nuns were to be forbidden to receive
Maud and Jonetta to the habit of nuns in any
manner whatever, until they heard otherwise.

On 28 February 1312-13 '® Agnes de Ponte-
fracto, a nun of the house, was elected prioress,
and on 7 March” following Custance de Cressy,
nun of the house, was transferred to Swine,
propter varias inobediencias. It seems pretty clear,
from what had occurred, that Custance de Cressy

® York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 28.

10 Ibid. fol. 172. " Tbid. Greenfield, fol. 705.

9 Ibid. fol. 108d. "8 Ibid. ii, fol. 54.

4 Thid. fol. 58.

18 The reception of girls of tender age as future nuns
is indicated in a licence from Archbishop Greenfield
in 1310 to the Prioress and convent of Hampole to
receive Elena daughter of the late Reyner Sperri,
citizen of York, eight years of age and ‘ bone conver-
sacionis et vite,” as a prospective nun (ibid. fol. 30).
A licence to take a young girl, Agnes de Langthwayt,
as a boarder was granted to Hampole by Archbishop
Greenfield in 1313 at the instance ‘ nobilis viri Ade de
Everyngham.’ (Ibid. fol. 730.)

18 Tbid. ii, fol. 62. Thid. fol. 634.

163

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

was the refractory prioress who had been removed
and Agnes de Pontefracto elected in her place. In
13148 the archbishop granted licence to the nuns
to have William de Calverleye, of the order of
Friars Minor, as their confessor.

In the week before Pentecost in the same year,
Archbishop Melton visited Hampole, and as a
result, but not till 5 December following, he sent
on aseries of injunctions.’ The house was found
to be heavily in debt, and he exhorted all to be
economical, and with the help of their discreet
custos, or master, to strive to be relieved of their
debts. All contained in his predecessor’s decretum,
as well as that in his own, was to be observed, and
the whole read inchapter. ‘The prioress and sub-
prioress were enjoined that they were to correct
and even chastise nuns who used new-fashioned
narrow-cut tunics and rochets, contrary to the
accustomed use of their order, whatever might be
their condition or state of dignity, and hence-
forth all the nuns were to use uncut garments of
the old fashion, long time observed in the house,
to the honour of religion. The archbishop also
ordered that all the irregular c/amides of the nuns,
to wit those of black colour, should be removed
within half a year, and that in future they
should use clamides of russet colour according to
the old fashion of the house and institutes of the
order; and four scapulars were to be provided
for the nuns whose duty it was to wait on the
convent at dinner (im prandio).

No secular servants were to sleep in the dor-
mitory, nor were any brethren of religious orders,
relatives of the nuns, to be allowed to spend the
night in the inner guest-chamber of the house.
No male children over five years of age were to
be permitted in the house, as the archbishop
found had been the practice. The prioress was
exhorted to show no_ personal favouritism.
Joan de Vernour was to have a room in the
outer court of the house for her abode, which the
convent had granted her for her life. Writing to
the Dean of Doncaster, on 14 July 1324,” the
archbishop directed him to make Thomas de
Raynevill undergo the penance imposed upon him
for committing the sin of incest with Isabella
Folifayt, nun of Hampole. The penance was
that on a Sunday, while the major mass was
being celebrated in the conventual church of
Hampole, Thomas de Raynevill was to stand,
wearing a tunic.only and bare-headed, holding a
lighted taper of a pound weight of wax in his
hand, which after the offertory had been said he
was to offer to the celebrant, who was to explain to
the congregation the cause of the oblation. Also
that on two festivals more penitenctum he should be
beaten (fustigetur) round the parish church of
Campsall. The Dean of Doncaster was to see
that this penance was performed, and was to
report how the culprit had conducted himself

'S York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 850.
® Ibid. Melton. * Ibid. fol. 1624.

during it. Evidently it was not carried out at the
time, foron 16 August 1326 * the archbishop re-
peated the direction for its performance.

On 1 January 1353 Archbishop Thoresby
issued a commission to inquire into the state of
the house, which, according to the public report,
through unwise rule and other causes, was in
such a condition of financial collapse that the
dispersion of its nuns was threatened, unless it
could be quickly and generously assisted. What
was discovered was to be corrected and reformed,
and if reasonable cause demanded it, the prioress
was to be deposed, and another elected.

On 8 December 1358* the archbishop wrote
to the prioress and convent on behalf of Alice de
Reygate, one of their nuns, who, with weeping
countenance, had prostrated herself at his feet,
confessing that she had broken the vow of her
profession and been guilty of immorality with
an unmarried man. The archbishop directed
that she was to be received back more penitentis,
but was not to wear the black veil. She was to
take the last place in the convent, and receive
daily disciplines in chapter, until he saw good to
order otherwise.

On 20 August 1411 ** Archbishop Bowett
held a visitation of Hampole, and sent on
20 October a long series of injunctions,
Several are of a general character, exhorting the
prioress and her nuns to charity one with an-
other and the due observance of their rule;
the prioress to use circumspection in regard to
the recreations of the nuns, now summoning
one and then another, and in making corrections
not to be a malicious acceptor of persons. She
was to punish and chastise so that the punish-
ment of one might be a continual fear of the
others, and if any proved incorrigible, or resisted
her, she was to certify the name of that nun
without delay to the archbishop, ‘ut ipsa juxta
ipsius demerita debite castigetur.’ All the nuns
were exhorted to obey the prioress, without
reluctance or murmuring. None having any
complaint against the prioress were to ignore the
archbishop’s authority and call in the aid of any
secular or regular power. Any wishing to com-
plain, if another sister joined with her, was to
have access to the archbishop, the necessary ex-
penses being given to her by the prioress. If the
prioress refused her leave for this, or delayed it
beyond three days, she and her nun associate
were to have access to the archbishop without
incurring a charge of apostasy.% Any receiving
gifts or legacies from friends were at once on
returning to reveal them to the prioress. No
person, secular or religious, greatly suspected,

"| Thid. fol. 1664. * Tbid. Thoresby, fol. 154.

8 Thid. fol. 103. * Ibid. Bowett, fol. ror.

* That is, they might go out of the monastery
without leave of the prioress, or even against her
order, that they might lay their complaint before
the archbishop, and yet not be charged with apostasy.

164

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

was to hold any colloquy with any of the
convent, &c.

The archbishop enjoined the prioress in virtue
of her vow of obedience, that Alice Lye, her
nun who held the office of bostilaria, or anyone
who succeeded her in office, should henceforward
be free from entering the rooms of the guests to
lay the beds, but the porter should receive the
bedclothes from the Aosti/aria at the lower gate,
and when the guests had departed he should
give them back to her at the same place. All
the nuns were enjoined not to allow any seculars,
or religious men, or their own servants, or
relatives or others of the male sex, to pass the
night in the inner guest-house, or within the
inner doors of the house. And none of the
nuns, the prioress excepted, were to retain any
one, clerk or layman, serving them, but having
dismissed such for the avoiding of scandal, they
might get a worthy woman, not suspected, who
should serve and minister to them,

The secular servants of the house, and the
corrodarii, who attracted to them other secular
persons from the country by whom the house
was burdened or the nuns disturbed, were to be
forthwith removed and were not to be allowed
to enter the door without special leave of the
prioress, sub-prioress, or cellaress, and if these
corrodarii were otherwise introduced for the day
the livery of the introducer was to be withheld.
Nor were secular corredarii to remain in the
house, except for the hour of receiving the
livery, unless they had needs for their continuous
stay there. The prioress was not to allow any
of the corrodarii or others to retain suspected
women with them in the house. The por-
tions allowed the nuns were to be augmented
according to the means of the house, with the
consent of the majority and wiser part of the
convent. The prioress was to take efficient action
with all speed to recover the pension of 40s. due
from the church of Greetwell in Lincoln diocese,
and also the rental of 50s. due from John Fitz
William, lost through neglect.

On 10 September 1426 *® Archbishop Kemp
licensed brother John Wotton of the order of
Friars Minor to hear the confessions of the nuns
of Hampole.

Among the leases granted by the nuns of
Hampole is an indenture dated 6 September
1516,?” by which ‘dame Agnes Ynse prioresse
w’ all the hoyll convent assent in the monastery
of owr blessed lady of Ampull of ye order of
cysternencis’ granted to Sir William Percy,
brother of the Earl of Northumberland, then
dwelling at Sutton upon Derwent, ‘for to be
steward of owr forsaid howse tennamentes and
landes for ye terme of ye for sayd Syr William

Percy knyghtes lyfe.’ Sir William was to keep the ©

* York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 28.
” Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 279.

courts for the convent and their tenants were to
be at his command. For his work as steward
the convent agreed to pay him 20s. a year.

A list of the nuns at the time of the Dissolu-
tion’ is headed by the name of Isabella Arthington
the prioress, aged fifty, and Joan Gascowyne the
sub-prioress, aged sixty. ‘There were twelve
others whose ages ranged from fifty to two aged
nineteen. Against each is written ‘religion,’
and it is said ‘all be of good conversation.’

PriorEssEs OF HAMPOLE

Denise, occurs 1284 78

Custance de Cressy, resigned 1312 ”

Agnes de Pontefracto, elected 1312,*° died
1319-20 *

Margaret de Hecke, elected 1319-20 ¥

Maud, occurs 1348 *

Elizabeth Fairfax, succeeded after 1380 *

Elizabeth, occurs 1392-1414 (as Isabel
1406) *8

Agnes, occurs 1433 *7

Alice, occurs 14.33, 14398

Margaret Banastre, died 1445 *°

Margaret Normanville, confirmed
resigned 1452 *

Agnes Clarel, confirmed 1452 ®

Elizabeth Rawdon, resigned 1483 *

Isabella Wheteley, confirmed 1483," resigned
1503-4 °

Elizabeth Arley, confirmed 1503-4,*8 resigned
1512%

Agnes Ynche, elected 1512 *

Isabella Arthington, confirmed 1517 *

1445,

33. THE PRIORY OF HANDALE,
OTHERWISE GRENDALE

This small nunnery, under the invocation of

the Blessed Virgin Mary, was founded in 1133?

*® Suppression P. ii, fol. 176. It is entitled
‘Prioratus sive domus monialium beate Marie de
Hampall ordinis sancti Augustini et de regula sancti
Benedicti Cistercien.’ ,

78a Cott. MS. Nero D. III, fol. 582.

*? Perhaps deprived, York Archiepis. Reg. Green-
field, ii, fol. 62, 634.

3° Ibid. fol. 62. 31 Tbid. Melton, fol. 1374.

% Thid. 33 Baildon’s MS. Notes.

“ Burton, Mon. Ebor. 265.

35 Baildon’s MS. Notes (perhaps the same as the
preceding.)

38 Ibid. 37 Ibid.

3 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 84.

% York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 4064.

49 Thid. 41 Tbid. W. Booth, fol. 376.

“ Thid. 43 Ibid. Rotherham, i, fol. 414.
“ Tbid. 5 Ibid. Savage, fol. 36.

*6 Tbid. 47 Ibid. Bainbridge, fol. 274.
8 Tbid. © Ibid. Wolsey, fol. 36.

1 Atkinson, Cleveland Anct. and Modern, 249.

165

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

by William Percy of Dunsley, in the parish of
Loftus-in-Cleveland.

The advowson of the priory was granted in
the reign of King John by Richard Percy to
Richard Malebisse and his heirs who were to
pay yearly to the convent 1 lb. of incense in
lieu of all services.?

The earliest allusion in the Archiepiscopal
Registers appears to be the appointment by
Archbishop Giffard of William de Bardenay,
monk of Whitby, as guardian of Handale and
Basedale nunneries, in 1267-8.3 Just twenty
years later, Archbishop Romanus‘ wrote to the
Master of Sherburn Hospital near Durham ask-
ing him to admit Basilia de Cotum, one of the
nuns of Handale, who was stricken with leprosy,
and who for fear of contagion could not dwell
among healthy women.

On the Saturday after the feast of St. Michael
1315° Archbishop Greenfield held a visitation
of the house, and the short series of injunctions
which he then issued are the only injunctions in
the Registers, as issued to Handale, and they are
in general terms almost identical with those
sent to Basedale at the same time.

On 13 May 1318°® Archbishop Melton
issued a commission to Thomas [de Mydelsburg],
rector of Loftus, to administer the temporal goods
of the Prioress and convent of Handale, to
receive the account of the servants, and to sub-
stitute more capable ones for those who were
useless, and to do whatever appeared to him to
be for the benefit of the house. On12 January
13887 the dean and chapter, sede vacante, issued
a letter on behalf of Handale, suffering from its
poverty, but with the exception of notices of
the election of prioresses, there is nothing of
importance in the Registers. Twoof the records
of the election of prioresses (Joan Scott in
1504* and Anne Lutton in 1532 °) are signifi-
cant as they expressly describe Handale as
belonging to the Cistercian order.

Of the external affairs of the house almost the
only item of interest that is known is a suit in
1301, when John de Aslakeby and John
Etwatre of Yarm had to answer a complaint
made by Ivetta, Prioress of Handale, that they,
with certain other persons who are named, had
seized and imprisoned her at Yarm, and com-
mitted other misdeeds for which she claimed £40

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 74.

* Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 54.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 304.

* Ibid. Greenfield, ii, fol. 108.

§ Tbid. Melton, fol. 2284,

"Ibid. Arundel (sed. vac.), fol. 9. In 1390 Boni-
face IX granted indulgences to those who on the
feast of the dedication visited and gave alms for the
conservation of the church and priory of Handale,
Cal. of Papal Letters, iv, 393.

* Ibid. Savage, fol 63.

* Ibid. see fol. 38.
* Baildon, Mon. Noves, i, 86.

as damages. It was not till 1 July 1303 that
the jury found for the defendants, and decided
that they had made no trespass on the prioress,
as she had alleged.

At the time of the Suppression’! there were
ten nuns. It is noted that ‘they all be of good
liffyng,’ and against six of the names ‘religion’
is written in the margin, indicating their desire
to continue in their vows. Joan Scott, the
late prioress, is second in the list, and after her
name is added ‘aet. got blynd.’ At a subse-
quent period her name has been struck through
with a pen, and the word ‘ obijt’ written in the
margin. Anne Lutton the prioress was assigned
a yearly pension of £6 135. 4d. Three of the
senior nuns received pensions of 335. 4d., and
the five juniors 26s. 8d. each.

Handale is not included in the taxation of
Pope Nicholas. In 1527” its clear annual
value was returned at £20, and in the Valor
Ecclesiasticus 3 at £13 19s. only. The alms
distributed weekly for the soul of Robert Percy,
who is called the founder, were two measures
(modios) of corn, and 3d, in money, amounting to
£4 9s. 2d.

When a return was made in 1553 "4 as to the
payment of the pensions to ex-religious, it was
stated that, as regarded Handale, Alice Bromp-
ton (165s. 8d.) mortua ut dicitur ; Margaret Lowd-
ham (33s. 4d.), Isabell Norman and Cecille
Watson (each 26s. 8d.) appeared with their
patents.

PrioressEs OF HANDALE

Beleisur, occurs 1208

Bella,’® occurs 1240

Avice, occurs 1262,” 1269 ¥

Ivetta, occurs 1287,!° 1305

Cecilia de Irton, confirmed 7 June 1313,”
resigned 4 May 1314”

Mariota de Herle, succeeded 1314,” re-
signed 1318 %

Alice de Hoton, elected
132078

Agnes, elected 1320 7

Katherine de Gilling, occurs 1413,” 1417”

1318,”> resigned

Suppression P. ii, fol.1. Subs. R. 64, no 303.

® Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 87.

“ Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle 76, no. 24.

8 Yorks. Fines, Fohn (Surt. Soc.), 149.

16 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 86.

" Guisborough Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 201.

® Ibid. 223. Ibid. 154.

* Baildon’s MS. Notes.

"York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield ii, fol. 964.

™ Thid. fol. 108. Both dates as to confirmation
and cession of Cecilia de Irton in the Monasticon
(Mon. Angl. iv, 74) are wrong.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 74.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 2284.

* Thid. * Ibid. fol. 2344. * Thid.

* Baildon, Mon. Nores, i, 86.

” Baildon’s MS. Notes.

166

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Cecilia, 1504 * resigned 1504 #

Joan Scott, * confirmed 1504,
15328

Anne Lutton,* confirmed 1532

resigned

34. THE PRIORY OF KELDHOLME

The small nunnery of St. Mary of Keldholme
in the parish of Kirkby Moorside was founded
by Robert de Stuteville in the reign of Henry I.!
The founder gave the site on which the house
was built, and the adjacent land, which is almost
entirely surrounded by a curve of the River
Dove, so the nuns are in some of the earlier
deeds spoken of as moniales de Duva instead of
de Keldholm?

The foundation charter is not extant, but
there are two charters of confirmation, granted
by King John in the second year of his reign,
_ printed in the AZonasticon,3 which describe the
' foundation gifts with some minuteness of detail.
The nuns of Keldholme never obtained the
grant of any church, their possessions were
always small, and possibly on this account the
priory is omitted from the Taxation of Pope
Nicholas in 1291.

The patronage of the house passed from the
Stutevilles to the Wakes, lords of Liddell, by the
marriage in the early part of the 13th century
of Joan, heiress of Nicholas de Stuteville, to
Hugh Wake.* Edmund de Holand, Earl of
Kent, died seised (11 Henry IV) of two parts of
the advowson of Keldholme, then valued at £2
yearly.?

There is remarkably little known of the his-
tory of the house, and almost all that is recorded
of it relates to violent disputes and internal
disorders in the 14th century, which called for
the intervention of the archbishop. A letter
, (9 December 1287) from Archbishop Romanus

to the nuns directed them to receive back one

of their members, Maud de Tiverington, who
had apostatized.6 On 30 December 1299, the
see being vacant, the Chapter of York addressed
a letter to the prioress and convent on behalf of
another nun, Cristiania de Styvelington, who
instigante diabolo had also apostatized, but having
appeared before the chapter had manifested
repentance, and desired to be allowed to return.
The chapter directed that she was to be re-
* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 74. 3! bid.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 63.

3 Ibid. see fol. 38.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 74.

ms Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 664; Burton, Mon. Edor.
380.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 380 n.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 665.

‘G.E.C. Complete Peerage, viii, 35, note (4).

"Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 664.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 51.

admitted, but was to undergo the salutary
penance prescribed by the rules of the order.”

On 15 July 1301 Archbishop Corbridge
issued a mandate to the sub-prioress and convent
to elect a successor to Emma de Stapelton who
had resigned. There is no mention of the
election which must then have taken place, but
the prioress then chosen, whose name is not
known, must have died, for Archbishop Green-
field (18 April 1308)° issued a commission to
inquire about the vacancy. If this had been
caused by a resignation the archbishop would
have known of it, as the resignation had to be
placed in the hands of the archbishop, and accepted
by him. The commissioner was directed to
inquire when the vacancy had occurred, and
how long Keldholme had been without a prioress,
and whether the vacancy had extended for six
months and thus the appointment lapsed to the
archbishop. This was followed on 21 April by
a letter from the archbishop to John de Newerk,
relating that as the election had lapsed, and as
Emma de Ebor’, one of the nuns, was reported
to be the most fit for the post of prioress, he
appointed her to that office.!°

About the same time an order was sent to the
official of the Archdeacon of Cleveland" direct-
ing him to proceed, according to the tenor of a
previous mandate, the contents of which do not
appear, against Beatrix de Roston, Anabilla de
Lokton, and certain other women of the monas-
tery of Keldholme, concerning whom it had
anew come to the archbishop’s ears that they,
together with Orphania de Nueton, Isabella
de Langetoft, Mary de Holm, and Joan de
Roseles, nuns of the house, contrary to their
duty, refused obedience to their prioress.!? As
six nuns refused obedience and were probably at
least half of the whole convent, it is not a matter
for surprise to learn that Emma de Ebor’ resigned
the office of prioress, to which she had only just
been promoted by the archbishop? On 5
August the archbishop addressed a letter to the
Archdeacon of Cleveland, stating that he had
accepted the cession of Emma de Ebor’, and that
as he found no one in the house capable of
assuming rule therein, he had carefully considered
the matter, and had appointed Joan de Pyker-
ing (a nun of Rosedale) who, from the tes-
timony of trustworthy persons, was deemed
competent, to be Prioress of Keldholme. Asa
number of persons, whom the archbishop named,
had openly and publicly obstructed the appoint-
ment of the new prioress, the archdeacon was
to proceed immediately to Keldholme, and give
her corporal possession, and at the same time

"Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 29.

8 Ibid. Corbridge, slip inserted between fol. 24
and 265.

9Tbid. Greenfield, fol. 88.

Ibid. fol. 89.

2 Thid. fol. gz.

" Tbid.

8 Ibid. *Tbid.

167

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

was to admonish the dissentient nuns named,
that they and all others must accept Joan de
Pykering as prioress from the date of her nomi-
nation, and reverently obey her. The lay folk
were to cease their opposition, under pain of the
greater excommunication. One of the latter,
who is not mentioned in the letter, Nicholas de
Rippinghall, was dealt with a little later by the
archbishop, who imposed the following penance.
On the second Sunday in Lent he was to go
bareheaded to the cathedral church of York,
clad in a tunic only, holding a taper of a pound
weight and after the procession was to go before
the high altar, and humbly offer the lighted taper
and receive a discipline there from the arch-
bishop’s penitentiary. The following Sunday
he was to do the same in Kirkby Moorside
Church and, after the Gospel, offer the taper and
receive a discipline there from the vicar or parish
clerk, and on the next two Sundays he was to
do much the same in the conventual church of
Keldholme.!®

On 3 September the archbishop issued a
mandate to the official of Cleveland, stating that
at the visitation of Keldholme he had found the
four nuns, Isabellade Langetoft, Mary de Holm,
Joan de Roseles and Anabilla de Lokton, in-
corrigible rebels, WVithin eight days Isabella
was to be sent to Handale, Mary within fifteen
days to Swine, Joan within three weeks to
Nun Appleton, and Anabilla within a month to
Wallingwells, there to perform the penances
imposed upon them.’® The stern action of the
archbishop had, however, little effect, and on
1 February following, the archbishop addressed
a letter to the sub-prioress and convent, com-
manding them that they one and all, without
delay, should direct a letter under their com-
mon seal, to the lady Joan Wake, lady of
Liddell, stating that they had admitted Joan
de Pykering unanimously as their prioress, and
intended to obey her in all things as such, and
asking the lady Joan Wake to direct that the
said prioress should have possession of the tem-
poralities and free administration in the same.”

On 5 February the archbishop issued another
commission to correct the crimes and excesses
revealed at a visitation of Keldholme and
described in an annexed schedule, which schedule
has not been copied into the Register.18 Very
shortly afterwards (17 February) he directed the
same commissioners to inquire whether Joan
de Pykering desired, for a good reason, of her
own free will to resign, and if they found that
she did, they were to enjoin the sub-prioress and
convent to proceed to the canonical election of
a new prioress.’® This was followed by the
election, on 7 March, of Emma de Stapelton as

** York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 724,
* Thid. fol. 924. "Ibid. fol. 934.
* Ibid. * Ibid. fol. 954.

prioress for the second time, and on the same
date an order was sent to Keldholme, forbidding
the sale of corrodies, or granting leases of the
convent’s property for long periods, and directing
that each year the accounts of the house were
to be made up within the octave of All Saints.?!
On 6 March the archbishop wrote to Esholt,?*
ordering the prioress and convent of that house
to receive Emma de Newcastle, nun professed at
Keldholme, who had been found guilty, at the
recent visitation, of conduct contrary to the
honesty of her rule. She was to go to Esholt
for a time, and there perform the penance
assigned her. She was to be last in quire, clois-
ter, refectory and dormitory. A similar letter
was sent at the same time to Nunkeeling
respecting Maud Bigot, another nun of Keld-
holme, who was temporarily transferred to that
house, under like conditions.

After this, if silence in the Registers may be
accepted as a sign of improvement, the troubles
which had distracted the little nunnery for a
time, atleast, came toan end. On7 April 1310
the archbishop committed the custody of the
temporalities of the nuns of Keldholme to
Richard del Clay, vicar of Lastingham.% On
Monday after the feast of St. Margaret 1314 the
nunnery was again visited, and the archbishop
issued a number of injunctions to the nuns.2> Many
of them are the ordinary exhortations to the due
observance of the rule, which almost assume
a common form in these decrees, but a few had
special reference to the condition of the house.
The necessary repairs were to be carried out,
specially as regarded the roofs, as soon as could
be. Secular finery and singularity of dress was
to be avoided by the nuns, nor were they to
wear anything but such as befitted religion.
No nun or other person belonging to the house
was to take away books, ornaments or other
things belonging to the church, without the
express consent of the prioress and convent.
The prioress was strictly enjoined that puppies
(caniculos) were excluded from entering quire,
cloister, and other places, and nuns who offended
in regard to this were to be punished.

Trouble again manifested itself, and on
27 October 1315 %® the archbishop directed
Richard del Clay, the custos of the monastery,
to proceed at once to Keldholme, and summon
before him in chapter Emma de Ebor’ (who it
will be remembered had been prioress for a short
time in 1308) and Mary de Holm, who, like
daughters of perdition, were disobedient and
rebels against their prioress, Having read the

® Thid. * Thid. fol. 96. ” Ibid.

* This is remarkable, as Nunkeeling was a Benedic-
tine house, and it was not the custom to send members
of one order to houses of another order to undergo
penances,

*York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 996.

**Thid. fol. 1018, ** Ibid. fol. 108.

168

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

archbishop’s letter in the mother tongue in
chapter, he was to admonish the two nuns for
the first, second, and third times, that they must
humbly obey their prioress in all lawful and
canonical injunctions, monitions, and commands.
They were not to meddle with any internal or
external business of the house in any way, nor
were they to go outside of the inclosure of the
monastery, or to say anything against their prior-
ess, under pain of expulsion and of the greater
excommunication.

Archbishop Greenfield died on 5 Decem-
ber 1315,” and on 13 February following the
dean and chapter directed the nuns to elect a
new prioress in place of Emma de Stapelton,
who had resigned, oppressed by age.* It is a
curious comment on the vigorous action of the
archbishop only a short time before, to find that
one of the two nuns whom he had so severely
censured was elected as the new prioress. Emma
de Ebor’? was now confirmed in office for the
second time on 7 March 1315." Mary de
Holm, who had been reproved as a disobedient
nun, transgressed more seriously, and on 6 June
1318 * Archbishop Melton wrote to the prioress
and convent directing them to compel Mary de
Holm to undergo the penance enjoined her for
the vice of incontinence committed by her with
Sir William Lyly, chaplain. The new arch-
bishop had previously visited the house, and on
4 May 1317%! had addressed a number of in-
junctions to the nuns, but they are all couched
in general terms and do not reveal anything in
particular relating to Keldholme.

After this the Registers * tell very little about
Keldholme, and nothing is known as to its
external history. One of the elections, that of
20 August 1467,°% is described rather fully.
There were then eight nuns in the house, viz.
Katherine Anlaby (the late prioress), Elizabeth
Browne, Alice Norton, Agnes Wright, Christiana
Redesdale, Joan Fleshewer, and Margaret
Talbot. They met in chapter, and having sung
Veni Creator Spiritus, delegated the election for
fifteen days to Archbishop Rotherham, who
appointed Elizabeth Davell, at that time Prioress
of Basedale.

Le Neve, Fasti Eccl. Angi. (ed. Hardy), ili, 105.

York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 91.

Ibid. * Tbid. Melton, fol. 2324. 31 Thid.

3 Mr. W. Brown has printed (Yorks. Arch. fourn. xvi,
456) an account of the penance imposed 20 July 1321
by Archbishop Melton (York Archiepis. Reg. Melton,
fol. 2364) on Maud of Terrington, an apostate nun of
Keldholme, who here seems to have lapsed morally,
besides apostatizing. She was to havea cell apart
from the others, was to stand during the quire offices,
was to fast on bread and pulse on Wednesdays, and
bread and water on Fridays, was to be flogged bare-
footed round the cloister, was to offer herself to be
spurned by the nuns, wear no ‘camisia,’ or black
veil, and was to recite two psalters, &c., weekly.

* York Archiepis, Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 164.

The royal commissioners visited Keldholme on
8 June 1535, and the house was suppressed on
5 or 7 August following.*4 There were then
five nuns besides the prioress, Sir John Potter *
the chaplain, and twelve servants and boys. In the
account of Leonard Beckwith, from Michaelmas
1535 to Michaelmas 1536, a parcel-gilt chalice
and paten weighing together 6 ounces, and
two bells valued at 10s. are accounted for.%®
Under ‘Surperstitio? Drs. Legh and Layton
reported that there wasa piece of the true cross
at Keldholme, and a finger of St. Stephen which
was wont to be offered ‘ parturientibus.’ ””

There are no Ministers’ Accounts of the
house, and all that is known as to its revenues
about this time is obtained from the Valor
Ecclesiasticus,*®> where they are set down at

£29 65, 1d.

PRioRESsES OF KELDHOLME

Sibil, occurs temp. Henry 1%

K— — occurs 1208-9 *

Basilia, occurs November 1208 *

Ellen, c. 1260 (?) 4

Beatrice de Crendale, resigned 1293-4”

Emma de Stapelton, confirmed 1293-4,**
resigned 1301 #

(Name unknown, elected 1301,*° died 1307)

Emma de Ebor, appointed April 1308,** re-
signed August 1308 “

Joan de Pykering, appointed August 1308,
resigned March 1308-9 *°

Emma de Stapelton (second time), confirmed
1308-9," resigned 1315-16"

Emma de Ebor (second time), confirmed
1315-16"

«KR. Aug. Off. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

36 By an ‘endentur,’ 3 Feb. 1532-3 ‘dame Elsabeth
Dauel priores off the monastery off oure lady of Keld-
holme’ and the convent granted Sir John Potter a
yearly rent for life, and also ‘comon of paster for on
horse to go at rughtbarth in somer and sufficient hay
and provanter for on horse off the said John to rydde
on in wenter in the nedful besenes of the house’ also:
two chambers ‘called the chaplen chamber wher in
the said Sir John now lith and sufficient fuell called
fier wode yerly to be takyn with in ther woddes att
Keldholme foresaid,’ &c. ; Conventual Leases, York
(P.R.O.), no. 322.

35K R. Aug. Off. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

37 Land P. Hen. VIII, x, p. 137 et seq.

8 Op. cit. v, 145+

% Burton, Mon. Edor. 380 n.

"Yorks. Fines, Fobn (Surt. Soc.), 152.

41a Cott. MS. Claud. D, xi, fol. 3.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 57.

8 Tbid. fol. 35.

“Ibid. Corbridge, slip between fol. 24 and 25.

* Thid. © Ibid. Greenfield, fol. 89.
“Thid. fol. 92. * Thid.
*Tbid. fol. 954. © Tbid.

51 Tbid. sed. vac. fol. gt. Tbid.

3 169 22

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

later, in 1539, Joan Kyppes surrendered the
priory, which had then eight inmates. At that
date. the whole property amounted to

Margaret de Aslaby, resigned 1406
Alice Sandeforth, elected 1406 “
Agnes Wandesforth, died 1461 °°

Ellen Wandesforth,®® died 1464 °7
Katherine Anlaby, resigned 1497 ©
Elizabeth Davell, appointed 1497, died

1534"
Elizabeth Lyon, elected 1534 ® (last prioress)

35. KIRKLEES PRIORY

The Cistercian nunnery at Kirklees in the
parish of Dewsbury was founded during the reign
of Henry II by Reiner le Fleming, lord of the
manor of Wath-upon-Dearne,! whose grant was
confirmed some time before 1240 by William, Earl
Warenne, and in 1236 by Henry III.? From
the years 1306 to 1315 there appears to have
been some scandal at Kirklees, especially with
regard to three of the nuns, Alice Raggid, Eliza-
beth Hopton, and Joan Heton.

In 1397 Sir John Mountenay, kt., John
Amyas, and others gave the priory 50 acres and
the advowson of the church of Mirfield® to
provide a chaplain for ever for the soul of Sir
John de Burgh at Kirklees. Boniface IX
(1400-4) allowed the nuns of Kirklees to appro-
priate Mirfield Church and to take corporal
possession on the death or retirement of the then
rector.4 The prioress could appoint or remove
at will a fit priest, either secular or regular, but
in 1403 Archbishop Scrope ordained a perpetual
vicarage there. In 1412 John de Burgh
bequeathed 135. 4d., and in 1407 Sir William
Scot, kt., of Great Halyton left 10 marks to the
fabric of the nuns’ church, and 10 marks to the
nuns. In 1535 all the temporalities and
spiritualities were only worth £20 75. 8d. gross
value, and {19 8s. 2d. net.®

The priory was not dissolved in 1535, but a
grant was given for its continuance in 1538 for
divine worship and hospitality. Cecilia Topcliffe
was to be prioress, and the convent was to consist
of those who had been thereon 4 February 1536,
and they might enjoy all their possessions as
before the passing of the Act.® Eighteen months

* York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 268. ™ Ibid.
Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 664. §§ bid.
*’ York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 438.

*STbid. Rotherham, i, fol. 164.

* Thid. © See fol. 41.

‘Ibid. As Isabell Lyon she appeared with her
patent in 7 Edw. VI, when inquiry was made as to
the payment of pensions to ex-religious, and was the
only ex-religious from Keldholme who did so ; Exch.
K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 25.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 739.

* Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xvi, 319-68 passim, quoting
Kirklees MSS. 29.

* Ibid. xvii, 422. “Ibid. 420-34.

* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 67.

° Land P. Hen. VILL, xiii (1), g. 1115 (19).

£29 18s. 9d.”
PrioressEs OF KirKLeEs ®

Sybil, occurs 1240

Alice le Mousters, occurs 1305 ®
Margaret of Claworth, elected 1306
Alice Screvyn, elected 1308

Alice, occurs 1328 ©

Elizabeth Stainton (date uncertain)
Margaret Savile, elected 1350

Alice Mountenay, occurs 1403

Cecilia Hick, occurs 1473," died 1491
Joan Stansfield, elected 1491, died 1499
Margaret Tarlton, elected 1499
Margaret Fletcher, 1505

Cecilia Topcliffe, 1527

Joan Kyppes, surrendered November 1539

36. THE PRIORY OF NUN APPLETON

About 1150 Eustace de Merch? and Adeliz
de St. Quintin, his wife, with consent of their
heirs Robert and William, granted to God, St.
Mary, and St. John the Evangelist, and to the
prior? and nuns abiding in the territory of
Appleton, near the River Wharfe, the place
which Juliana held, and other land subse-
quently. The foundation charter states that
Adeliz de St. Quintin and her son and heir
Robert de St Quintin re-granted this to Brother
Richard, and the nuns serving God there, for the
souls of Robert, the son of Fulk, and his parents.®
This grant was confirmed by St. Thomas
Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, between
1162 and 1171.4

King John in 1205 confirmed these and many
other grants made to the nuns,° and curiously
enough the gift of the church of St. Mary Cod-
denham is included in the grant, though as will
be subsequently shown it had passed in 1184 to
Royston Priory. Early in the reign of Henry II ®
Eustace de Merch, who, in virtue of his marriage
with Adeliz de St. Quintin, was possessed of the
church of St. Mary of Coddenham [in Suffolk],
granted that church to Nun Appleton that a

” Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 739.

® Yorks. Arch. Journ. xvi, 321, where the authorities
for each name are given.

® Assize R. 1107, m. 24.

10 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 106.

" Corpus Christi Guild Reg. (Surt. Soc.).

'B.M. Cott. MSS. xii, 46.

* This with the previous donation to ‘ Brother
Richard and the nuns’ is noteworthy, though what is
indicated is not clear.

° Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 652, no. i.

* Ibid. 653, no. ii. * Ibid. no. vi.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 655.

170

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

monastery of nuns might be established at
Coddenham, ‘ de congregacione et professione et
ordine sanctimonialium de Apeltuna.’ It is
extremely doubtful whether any steps were
taken, beyond the making of this grant, towards
the foundation of this proposed cell, or nunnery.
At any rate Coddenham Church, given by its
patron Eustace de Merch, is mentioned in a
papal confirmation in 11847 of the possessions
of the newly-founded priory of Royston in
Hertfordshire. On17 February 1275-68 Arch-
bishop Giffard wrote to the Prioress of Appleton,
in common with other Cistercian prioresses in
his diocese, that the Friars Minor were to hear
their confessions, as had been the custom, in spite
of the inhibition of the abbots of the order, who
possessed no jurisdiction, ordinary or delegated,
over the nuns.

In 1281° Archbishop Wickwane issued a
series of injunctions to Nun Appleton. The
prioress was to be more diligent in her duty than
heretofore. No nun was to appropriate for
herself any present of clothing or shoes, given
her by anyone, without the consent of the
prioress. All that the prioress received in money
or kind for the use of the monastery, she was
not to receive alone, but in the presence of two
or three of the older and wiser of the nuns and
at the end of the year she was to reckon up before
the seniors, chosen for that purpose, the receipts
and expenditure of the house. No one was to
be received as nun or sister of the house, or even
to live there, without the archbishop’s special
licence, but honest hospitality for a day or night
was not meant to be forbidden, so that no occa-
sion of sin or scandal arose. Locks on forcers
and chests the archbishop forbade, unless the
prioress, very often inspecting the contents,
should make other honest order in this respect.
The refectory and cloister were to be better
guarded from strangers than was wont, lest the
good fame of the nuns should vanish hereafter
more than it had already done.

One of the great troubles against which, from
the first, the archbishops had to contend was
that of the nuns receiving secular women to
board with them, It was constantly forbidden,
generally on the ground of expense, but probably
the presence of women of the world had a secu-
larizing effect, and did not conduce to the religious
life of the nuns. Writing from Cawood, on
5 March 1289-90,” Archbishop Romanus for-
bade the nuns to take any women as boarders, or
to admit anyone to their habit, without his special
licence. Almost in exactly the same terms
Archbishop Corbridge wrote on 17 February
1302-3," forbidding them also to allow anyone

” BLM. Cott. MS. Aug. ii, 124.

® Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 295.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 136
™ Ibid. Romanus, fol. 352.

” Ibid. Corbridge, fol. 20.

to remain at the convent’s expense, the house
being already heavily in debt.

On 9 May 1306” Archbishop Greenfield
appointed Roger de Saxton to the care of the
goods of the nunnery. The same archbishop
addressing the Prioress and convent of Appleton,
of the order of St. Benedict, on 4 January 1 307-8,8
directed them to send Maud de Bossall to Base-
dale * in Cleveland for a while, she having been
for many years unruly and disobedient, setting a
bad example to the other nuns. In the same
year the archbishop granted licence that Agnes
de Saxton’® might be admitted a sister of the
house, and directed that the custos of the house
was to have his meals daily in the chamber
assigned to him, unless it happened that the
prioress was having her meals in her own chamber,
on account of entertaining strangers, in which
case, for the sake of company, the custos might
jointhem, A year later, 27 January 1308-9,'°
the prioress and convent were directed to re-admit
Maud de Bossall on her return from Basedale.
In September 1309” the archbishop appointed
his receiver, William de Jafford, to audit the
accounts of the convent, and also wrote to the
prioress and convent that Avice de Lyncolnia,
niece of William de Jafford, might remain for
four years in the monastery without prejudice to
their house. A letter from the archbishop
(12 November 1309)?® directed that Maud de
Ripon, a nun who had incurred the sentence of
the greater excommunication for apostasy, and
had been absolved, was to be re-admitted. The
trouble as to taking boarders seems to have come
to the fore again in 1316,!* for on § November
in that year the dean and chapter, sede vacante,
forbade the nuns to take any kind of secular
women as boarders, without special licence.

Archbishop Melton held a primary visitation
of Nun Appleton on 7 April 1318,” on which
occasion he issued a long list of injunctions,
many of which are exhortations and commands
of a general character, or similar to those of his
predecessors. Among those which are not so is
an inhibition that no brothers of any order were
to be received ad hospitandum, unless, perchance,
they arrived so late that it was impossible not to
lodge them, and rather inconsequently it is added
that two sets were not to be received at the
same time, until the house was relieved of debt.

13 Ibid. Greenfield, i, fol. 56.

13 Ibid. fol. 684. The nunnery was, of course,
Cistercian, but is spoken of in general terms as of the
order of St. Benedict.

4 <Erden’ has been crossed out and Basedale
substituted. :

% York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, i, fol. 69.
Agnes, no doubt, was related to the ‘custos’ appointed
in 1306. ;

16 Tbid. fol. 72. Thid. fol. 740, 75.

18 Ibid. fol. 76. 19 Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 86.

20 Ibid. Melton, fol. 131.

171

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

No nun was to leave the cloister to talk or sit
at night time with such brothers. Secular
persons were forbidden to enter the cloister at
unlawful times, except for honest and urgent
causes, lest their going to and fro should interfere
with the quiet and devotion of the nuns. Not
more than two or three nuns from one family
were to be admitted into the house without
special licence for fear of discord arising.”

The archbishop straitly enjoined all the nuns
not to leave their monastery by reason of any
vows of pilgrimage which any of them might
have taken. If any had taken such vows, then
such a one was to say as many psalters as it
would have taken days to perform the pilgrimage
so rashly vowed. ;

In 1320” Elizabeth de Holbeck, the prioress,
resigned owing to her old age and bodily weak-
ness, having, as the archbishop wrote to the nuns,
laboured with efficacy while her strength lasted.
She was succeeded by Isabella Normanvill. On
21 April 1335 °° the archbishop granted licence
to the convent to relax the penance imposed on
Joan de Scardeburg, one of the nuns, but does
not say for what offence it had been imposed.

Archbishop Zouch issued (February 1346) 4a
series of injunctions, as a result of a visitation.
Many are in general terms, and like others of
the kind. He began by reproving the prioress
for grave neglect of duty, to the scandal
of her house, and the nuns were admon-
ished to lay aside every trace of pride and
arrogancy, and in the spirit of humility to obey
their superiors. In regard to Katherine de
Hugate, one of the nuns, who, miserably defiled
by a carnal lapse, had retired from the house in
a state of pregnancy, the archbishop ordered that
if she returned, she was to be very severely
punished, according to the appointed penance of
their order, and her penance, or any like penance
imposed on a nun or sister for a similar offence,
was not to be mitigated in any degree, except by
special licence of the archbishop. Margaret, a
sister of the house, who had retired in a similar
state, was on no account to be taken back, as the
archbishop had found that in the past she had on
successive occasions relapsed, and become preg-
nant. ‘The infirmary was too limited in capacity,
and the archbishop directed that certain chambers
on the west part of the church, beyond the
focutorium, or parlour, in which certain of the
nuns, contrary to the honesty of religion, were
abiding, were to be pulled down within a year,
so that the infirmary might be extended. ‘The
doors of the church, cloister, and Jocutorium for
long time past had been negligently guarded ;
this was to be corrected, and no secular woman

" From the formation, no doubt, of cliques in the
house.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 142.

* Thid. fol. 1994. * Ibid. Zouch, fol. 144,

of any description was to sleep or pass the night
in the dormitory. The guests who flocked
(Aospites confluentes) to the house were to be
admitted to the hostelry constructed for that
purpose. The internal officers in charge of the
food and drink had done their work badly, to the
loss of the house, and the nuns were to substitute
efficient servants in place of those who were
useless, who were to be discharged. Lest the
nuns might overstep the means of their house, no
one was to be received as nun or sister, without
special licence.

In 1489* Archbishop Rotherham issued a
series of injunctions for the nuns of much the
usual character, but being in English it may be
conveniently quoted in full. They reveal no
serious offences, the worst being that of visiting
the ale-house. The nearness to the River Wharte
was something in the nature of a temptation,
being a favourite resort, and also being near the
water highway between York, Selby, and Hull,
accounted for the Aospites confluentes mentioned by
Archbishop Zouch in his decretum above quoted,

First and principally we commaunde and injoyne,
yat divine service and ye rewles of your religion be
observed and kept accordyng to your ordour, yat ye
be professed to.

Item yat ye cloistre dores be shett and sparn ™ in
wyntre at vij, and in somer at viij of the clok at nyght,
and ye keys nyghtly to be delyvered to you Prioresse,
and ye aftir ye said houres suffre no persone to come
in or forth w'out a cause resonable.

Item yat ye Prioresse suffre no man loge undir the
dortir, nor oon the baksede, but if hit be such sad
persones by whome your howse may be holpyne and
socured w'out slaundir or suspicion.

Item yat ye Prioresse and all your sistirs loge
nyghtly in ye dortour, savyng if ye or your sisters be
seke or deseasid, yen ye or yei so seke or deseased to
kepe a chambre.

Item yat noon of your sistirs use ye ale house nor
ye watirside, wher concurse of straungers dayly
resortes.

Item yat none of your sistirs have yeir service of
mete and drynke to yer chambre, but kepe ye ffrater
and ye hall accordyng to your religion, except any of
yaim be seke,

Item yat none of your sistirs bring in, receyve, or
take any laie man, religiose, or secular into yer chambre
or any secrete place, daye or knyght, nor wt yaim in
such private places to commyne, ete, or drynke, w'out
lycence of you Prioresse.

Item yat ye Prioresse lycence none of your sistirs to
go pilgremage or viset yer frendes w'oute a grete
cause, and yen such a sistir so lycencyate by you to
have w*' her oon of ye moste sadd and well disposid
sistirs to she come home agayne.

Item yat ye graunte or sell no corrodies nor lyveres
of brede, nor ale, nor oyer vitell, to any person or
persones from hensforward w'out yauctorite and speciall
lycynce of us or our Vicar generall.

* Ibid. Rotherham, i, fol. 245. Itis printed but
with many errors ; Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 654, no. vii.
*° <Sparn,’ i.e. fastened by a spar or bar of wood.

172

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Item yat ye se such servauntes as longeth to your
place come in to mete and drinke, and not to have
yer lyveres of brede and ale outwardes, but if ye thynk
hit necessarye and for the welthe of your house.

Item yat ye take no perhedinauntes” or sogerners
into your place from hensforward, but if yei be chil-
dren or ellis old persones, by which availe biliklyhood
may growe to your place.

In Archbishop Savage’s Register *8 there is an
entry recording the institution of John Cristall,
chaplain, to the chantry of St. John the Baptist,
in the conventual church, which had become
vacant by the profession of John Harpham, the
late chaplain, as a Carthusian monk, in the
chapter-house of Mount Grace.” The chantry
had been founded by John Latham, a wealthy
ecclesiastic of the diocese of York, Master of
Trinity College, otherwise Knolles Almshouses,
Pontefract, and Canon of Beverley, probably ‘ the
greatest benefactor the little nunnery of Appleton
ever had.’*° After directing in his will that his
dody was to be buried in the church of the priory
of Nun Appleton, in the chapel before the altar
of St. John the Baptist, he left to the prioress
135. 4d., and to each nun 6s. 8d., and each of
them were, if possible, to recite a psalter for him
on that day. The celebrant was to have 20d.,
and for constructing a new roof to the conventual
church he bequeathed £26 135. 4d. He con-
doned any debts due from the prioress and convent
to him, and left to Joan Ryther, the prioress,
if she survived him, a plain silver piece, anda
large feather bed with a bolster, for the use of
the convent but to remain with the prioress
during her life. For her own use he bequeathed
asilver-gilt piece with its cover, a new maser
gilt, standing on a foot, and certain beds, cloths,
sheets, &c. (which are minutely described) on the
condition that the prioress, in recompense for
all these bequests, would during her life say
placebo and dirige with commendatio for his soul,
and those of his parents. ‘To the prioress and
convent for the use of the chaplain of his
chantry, Latham bequeathed his large Portiforium,
two chalices, a ‘paxebrede’ of silver, and his
missal of York use, with all necessary cloths for
the apparel of the altar of St. John Baptist, the
chaplain being bound to pray for him. He also
left the prioress and convent two small ‘salina
Anglice saltesalers,’ of silver with a cover. To
Isabella Burdet, sub-prioress, he bequeathed three
silver spoons, to pray for him. Joan Ryther,
the prioress, with two other persons, he appointed
his residuary legatees and executors. Joan
Ryther probably belonged, Canon Raine observes,

7 The ‘perhedinauntes,’ more correctly ‘ perhen-
dinauntes,’ were the boarders so often alluded to in
the injunctions to nunneries.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 79.

” Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 212.

” Test, Ebor. iii, 173 n.

to the old family of Ryther of Ryther, as did no
doubt her predecessor Agnes de Ryther.

According to the Taxatio of 1291 the priory
held temporalities in the diocese of Lincoln to
the amount of £13 135. 10d., and in the diocese
of York to the amount of £23 155. 10d. besides
a pension of £3 6s. 8d. from the church of
Ryther.*! There is no record of the value of
the house in the Valor Ecclesiasticus, but in a
return of 1522-3 the clear value of the priory of
Nun Appleton is set down as {£29 25. 1d.
This, however, can only apply to its revenues in
the county of York. According to the Monasticon
Dugdale and Speed had preserved a note that its
clear value at the time of compiling the Valr
was £73 9s. 104.33

The office of prioress*4 would seem to have
been vacant at the Dissolution. At any rate
the pension list, dated 4 or 5 December 1539,
begins with Elinora Normanvell, late sub-prioress,
who received £2 6s, 8d. She is followed by
eighteen other nuns, one of whom, Agnes
Snaynton, received £3. Of the rest two
received a like pension to the sub-prioress, the
rest less,

PrioreEssts OF Nun APPLETON

Alice,*® occurs 1235

Mabel, occurs 1262 3

Hawise,** occurs 1277, 1285,” resigned 1294
Isolda,*? occurs 1300

Joan de Normanvill, confirmed 1303,
occurs 1306 #
Elizabeth de Holbeke,* confirmed 1316,

resigned 1320%
Isabella Normanvill,** elected 1320
Margaret de Nevill,* resigned 1334
Idonia,* occurs 1342
Lucy de Gaynesburgh,®” died 1367
Agnes de Egmanton,* confirmed 1367
Emma de Langton,* occurs 1388, 1397 °°
Idonia Danyell,®! occurs 1404, 1408, died
1426
Elizabeth Fitz Richard,** confirmed 1426

31 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 652.
3? Subs. R. 64, no. 300.

4 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 654.
35 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 159.
Cg]. Bodl. Chart, 697. ** Baildon’s MS. Notes.
37 Coram Rege R. 95, m. 7.

88 York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 464.

39 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 159.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 164.

| Baildon’s MS. Notes.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 854.

* Tbid. Melton, fol. 142.

“ Ibid. fol. 142d. * Ibid. fol. 199.

46 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 159.

7 York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 1420.

3 Dugdale, loc. cit.

6 Thid. 9 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 159.
59 Baildon’s MS. notes. 51 Thid.
5! York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 364. 8 Thid.

rie

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Agnes de Ryther,™ occurs temp. Henry VI

Joan de Ryther,* pardoned 1454, occurs
1459,°° 14707

Maud Tailbusse,°® confirmed
1506

Anne Langley,®® appointed by lapse 1506

1489, died

The 13th-century seal ® isa vesica, 23 in. by
13 in., showing a full-length figure of the Blessed
Virgin holding cross and book, The legend

runs——

yY4 SIGILLV SANCTE MARIE SANCTI IOHANNIS
DE APELT’

37. THE PRIORY OF ROSEDALE

The priory of Rosedale was founded in the
reign of Richard I by Robert, the son of
Nicholas de Stuteville, and was under the invo-
cation of St. Mary and St. Lawrence.’

An inspeximus by Edward II of King John’s
charter confirming the founder’s grant? and
enumerating a number of other donations is set
out by Burton.°

On 17 October 1306,‘ in consequence of a
visitation, Archbishop Greenfield issued injunc-
tions to the prioress and convent. Most were
of the usual character, as to the due observance
of the rules of the order. Charity was to be
cultivated, corrections made in chapter without
favour, the nuns not to quarrel, the infirmary to
be kept from the going to and fro of seculars,
and confessors were not to be indiscriminately
chosen by the nuns, but two brothers of the
order of Friars Minor were to be chosen, and
their names submitted to the archbishop.

On 22 August 1310° Archbishop Greenfield
ordered an inquiry as to certain unspecified

“ Burton, Mon. Ebor. 279. Her grave-slab,
charged with a shield impaled, ‘ dexter three crescents
for Ryther, sinister blank, semy of quarterfoils,
probably the arms of the nunnery,’ was taken from
the nunnery chapel, and for many years served to stop
water at a mill, till it was placed in Bolton Percy
Church by Mr. T. Lamplough, the rector. The inscrip-
tion on it, according to Drake is, or was, ‘ + Orate
pro anima Agnetis de Ryther quondam priorisse hujus
monasteril . . . xxxiii que obiit primo die mensis
Martit MCCCC . . cujus anime propitietur Deus.
Amen.” Drake, Edboracum, 386.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 159.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 279.

° Test. Ebor. iii, 175, 178.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 279.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 484. She is
called Langton in Conventual Leases and elsewhere.

*' Cat. of Seals, B.M. 2661; Harl. Chart. 44 A. 5;
a His 2

‘ Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 316.

* Ibid. 317, no. i.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 378, 379.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, i, fol. 87.

* Ibid. fol. 100d.

articles urged against the prioress. The nuns
and conversi were to be sworn and examined
privately, all secular persons being removed from
their presence. ‘The accounts of the prioress,
from the time of her administration, as well as
those of the bailiffs and other officials and
servants bound to render accounts were to be
examined, and the prioress was ordered to render
to the commissioners full and complete accounts
from the time of her promotion, as well as a
statement of the then position of the house, and
a further letter was sent by the archbishop to
the sub-prioress and nuns, telling them to render
an account of the house to the commissioners,
as it was when the prioress took office and as it
was at the time he wrote. Evidently the charge
was one of maladministration. Whether the
charges proved against her were those of wilful
wrongdoing or merely of incompetent manage-
ment, Mary de Ros resigned the office of
prioress sentiens se impotens, and on 30 September ®
the archbishop directed the sub-prioress and
convent to elect ‘aliam idoneam et honestam de
vestri monasterii gremio monialem in priorissam,’
but before any election was made Mary de Ros
died, and on 1 January 1311 the king, as
patron during the minority of Thomas Wake,
granted the nuns leave to elect a new prioress.’

Another visitation of the house was held on
Saturday, 28 September 1315,° as a result of
which Archbishop Greenfield issued another set
of injunctions. A certified statement, showing
the credit and debit accounts of the house, was
to be sent to the archbishop before the feast of
St. Nicholas. The prioress was to see that the
defects in the roof of the cloister and other
buildings were repaired, alms were to be only
given to the poor as the means of the house
allowed. An elderly nun of good fame and
honest conversation was to have charge of the
cloister keys, the sick were to be duly tended,
and any nun disobedient and rebellious in re-
ceiving correction was for each offence to receive
a discipline from the president in chapter and
say the seven penitential psalms with the litany,
and if still rebellious, the archbishop would
impose a more severe penance.

The archbishop forbade all to accept presents
from anybody, or give any, except with the
consent of the prioress. Under pain of the
greater excommunication no nun was to cause a
girl or boy to sleep, under any consideration, in
the dormitory, and if any nun broke this com-
mand the prioress, under pain of deposition
from office, was to signify her name to the
archbishop without delay. All nuns of the
house were forbidden to wear mantles or other
garments of a colour or shade different from

§ Ibid. fol. 101.
” Cal. Pat. 1307-13, p. 301.
* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, i, fol. 1075.

174

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

those accustomed to be worn by religious, and
no unprofessed sister was to wear the black
veil,

The prioress and sub-prioress were ordered
not to allow puppies to enter the quire or church,
which would impede the service and hinder the
devotion of the nuns. Those nuns who were
allowed out to visit their parents or friends
were to return within fifteen days, and no
corrodies were to be granted, or boarders, &c.,
received without the archbishop’s special licence.

On 17 May 1321° Archbishop Melton
wrote to the Prioress and convent of Handale,
that he was sending to them Isabella Dayvill,
nun of the house of Rosedale, vestri ordinis, who,
contary to the honesty of religion, had apostatized.
She was to undergo her appointed penance in
their house, was to be last in the convent, was
to talk to no one, secular or religious, and not to
go out of the precincts of the monastery. Every
Friday she was to fast on bread and water, and
every Wednesday to abstain from fish, and on
each of those days was to receive a discipline in
chapter from the hands of the president.

On 21 November 1322,° owing to the
ravages of the Scots, the monastery of Rosedale
suffered so severely that the nuns were dispersed,
and the archbishop wrote to Nunburnholme to
receive Alice de Rippinghale, to Sinningthwaite
to receive Avelina de Brus, to Thicket to receive
Margaret de Langtoft, and to Wykeham on
behalf of Joan Crouel, nuns of Rosedale ; and it
is noted that another nun, Eleanor Dayvill,
entered the house of Hampole, with letters from
the queen. If Isabella Dayvill was still at
Handale this would account for six nuns, and
as there is no mention of the prioress it is probable
that she, and probably another nun to keep her
company, were able to remain at Rosedale.
This would bring up the number to eight, and
it appears that another nun, Joan de Dalton,
had been previously sent away, for the arch-
bishop (3 June 1323)" ordered that she should
be re-admitted. This would account for nine nuns
belonging to Rosedale, and that is believed to
have been the number usually forming the
convent. From the date of Joan de Dalton’s
re-admission it is evident that the dispersion of
the nuns did not extend beyond six months.

In 1326” Brother Adam, late a conversus of
this house, with tears and prayers, kneeling
before the prioress and convent in the presence
of witnesses, asked forgiveness for his many
offences against the convent and sought release
from his vows and profession. ‘They released
him from the profession of obedience he had
made in their house to God, Blessed Mary,

®* York Archiepis, Reg. Melton, fol. 238.
Thid. fol. 240.

" Tbid. fol. 241.

Ibid. slip between fol. 244 and 245.

and Blessed Lawrence, he on his part renouncing
all right he had in the house of Rosedale, and
this they notified to the archbishop.

In a taxation of Rosedale in 1378-9," eight
nuns are named, including Joan Colvyle the
prioress. On 1 September 1534 Archbishop
Lee dealt with the case of Joan Fletcher,!* who
had been professed as a nun at Rosedale and was
subsequently appointed prioress of the neigh-
bouring nunnery of Basedale. That office she
had resigned to avoid deposition, and she was
sent back to Rosedale by the archbishop to
undergo the penance he had imposed upon her.
But as she had shown no sign of repentance
the archbishop wrote to the Prioress and convent
of Rosedale to send her to Basedale again, which
house she once ruled as prioress, that where she
was not ashamed to sin, there she might lament
her misdeeds. ‘The archbishop speaks of Base-
dale and Rosedale as houses of the order of
St. Benedict, and the question has been mooted
as to whether Rosedale was a Cistercian or a
simple Benedictine house. In at least three
places in the Registers Rosedale is definitely
stated to be Cistercian,’® and in one instance,
indeed, as of the order of St. Augustine.4® This
may be compared with the description of Hampole
in the Suppression Papers,” ‘prioratus sive domus
monialium beate marie de Hampall ordinis sancti
Augustini et de regula sancti Benedicti Cister-
ciensis,” and of Kirklees as ‘ordinis sancti
Barnardi et de regula sancti Benedicti Cister-
ciensis,’® and Arthington as ‘domus monialium
Cluniencis ordinis sancti Benedicti.’ ®

At the time of the suppression there were
eight nuns besides the prioress. The house
was supervised on 7 June and suppressed on
17 August 1535. The nuns, at the time of
the suppression, employed twelve men and boys.
There were two small bells in the ‘ campanile,’
valued together at 10s., of gilt plate a chalice
and three maser bands are reckoned, weighing
240z., and of plate parcel-gilt there was a
chalice and a goblet with a [? cover] weighing
213 02.”

1 Subs. R. 63,no0. 11. In 1291 the old taxation was
£22, the new £5 : Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 325.
In 1527 the clear annual value was £25 os. 5a.
(Subs. R. 64, no. 303), and according to Valor Eccl.
(v, 144), £37 125. $d.

4 Yorks. Arch. Fourn. Xvi, 431.

3 York. Archiepis. Reg. Geo. Nevill, fol. 1024 ;
Wolsey, fol. 62, 864. On 29 Sept. 1290 Arch-
bishop Romanus sent Elizabeth Rue, nun of Swine,
to Rosedale vestri ordinis.

16 Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 1344.

1” Suppression P. ii, fol. 176.

18 Tbid. fol. 189.

8 Tbid. fol. 227. In all cases the Benedictine rule
was that professed with certain ‘reforms.’ Cistercian
abbots in their oaths of canonical obedience used the
phrase ‘secundum regulam sancti Benedicti.’

KR. Aug. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

i73

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

PRIORESSES OF ROSEDALE

Alfreda, occurs 12467

Juliana, occurs 1252

Isabella Waloue, occurs 1281 78

Mary de Ros, resigned 1310

Joan de Pickering, confirmed 1310-11

Isabella Whiteby, resigned 1336 °°

Elizabeth de Kirkeby Moresheved, confirmed
13367

Joan Colvyle, occurs 1378~9

Isabel de Lomley, occurs 1399”

Katherine de Thweng, before 1410

Alice Gower, occurs 1413 *

Margaret Chambirlayn, resigned 1468 ®

Joan Bramley, elected 1468 *

Margaret Ripon, died 1505 *4

Joan Badesby, appointed 1505 *

Matilda Felton, confirmed 1521 *

Mary Marshall, confirmed 1527 *”

38. THE PRIORY OF SINNING-
THWAITE

Sinningthwaite Priory, in Bilton-in-Ainsty,
was founded about 1160 by Bertram Haget, who
gave the site,! and the gift was confirmed by his
overlord, Roger de Mowbray,” who at the same
time confirmed other gifts made to the nuns by
Geoffrey Haget the founder’s son, when they
received his sister.’

From Gundreda Haget, another daughter of
the founder, the nuns received the advowson of
the church of Bilton. In 1293, however, the
prioress and convent made over the church of
Bilton® to Archbishop Romanus, who founded
the prebend of Bilton in St. Peter’s, York, out
of it, and in 1295 ° ordained a perpetual vicarage
of Bilton, in the patronage of the prioress and
convent.

” Feet of F. file 38, no. 11 (Trin. 30 Hen. III).

” Ibid. file 44, no. 79 (Mich. 36 Hen. III).

® York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, i, fol. 1344.

™ Ibid. Greenfield, i, fol. ro1.

* Ibid. fol. roz.

6 Ibid. Melton, fol. 262.

8 Subs. R. 63, no. 11.

” Cal. Pat. 1399-1401, p. 155.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 317.

3 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 188.

*? York Archiepis. Reg. G. Nevill, fol. 100.

8 Tbid. * Tbid, Savage, fol. 65.

% Ibid. * Ibid. Wolsey, fol. 614.

* Tbid. fol. 865; a nun of Appleton.

? Dugdale, Alon. Angi. v, 463.

* Ibid. 464, no. i.

* Besides this member of the founder’s family, his
great-granddaughter Euphemia afterwards became
prioress.

‘ Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 464, no. iii.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 325.

§ Lawton, Coll. Rerum Eccl. 52.

” Ibid.

All the different gifts are recorded by Burton
in his usual manner.’ The most important, as
raising a difficult question, was the gift of
Esholt in Guiseley by Simon Ward, Maud
his wife, and William Ward his son, which is
dealt with in the account of Esholt Priory.
Probably some of the nuns from Sinningthwaite
afterwards formed a separate nunnery there.

Asa Cistercian house the convent of Sinning-
thwaite contested the right of the archbishop to
visit them and appealed to the pope in 1276®
against a visitation of Archbishop Giffard, but
the decision, though not recorded, was evidently
against them, although echoes of a claim by
Cistercian abbots of authority over nunneries of
their order are to be met with here and there
in the Archbishops’ Registers, but only to be
repudiated. In 1276° Archbishop Giffard or-
dered the nuns to have Friars Minor as confessors
in spite of the inhibition of the Cistercian
abbots, who had no jurisdiction over them.

Among the privileges granted in 11721 by
Pope Alexander III to Sinningthwaite was that
of receiving clerks or laymen fleeing from the
world (a seculo fugientes), as conversi (ad conversionem
vestram), coupled with a prohibition of the
brethren or sisters of Sinningthwaite leaving their
monastery without licence.

Archbishop Romanus wrote on 12 June 1286"!
to the nuns to receive back Agnes de Bedal,
one of their number who had apostatized, and on
22 January following” sent another letter in
favour of a certain Margaret de la Batayle, who
desired to enter their house asa nun. Rather
more than two years later (12 April 1289) he
committed the custody of the monastery of
Sinningthwaite to Robert de Muschamp, rector
of the church of ‘Dichton’ (Kirk Deighton)
and on 18 August 1294 '4 he issued a commission
to Mag’ Thomas de Wakefield, Chancellor of
York, and Mag" Robert Nassington to receive
the cession of the Prioress of Sinningthwaite
and to confirm the election of her successor.

Archbishop Corbridge had to interfere in 1300
on behalf of a certain Maud de Grymston,!®
who, having undergone her year of probation,
was to have received the black veil and been
admitted a nun. This the prioress and convent
had refused for some reason, to the scandal of
their order, and the archbishop, writing from
Scrooby on 21 December, ordered them to
admit her.

On Tuesday after the Conversion of St. Paul
1314-15,'° Archbishop Greenfield visited the

" Burton, Mon. Ebor. 325-7.

* Dagdale, Mon. Angl. v, 464-5.

* Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 295.

” Dugdale, Mon. Angi. 466, no. vii.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 26.

” Ibid. fol. 29. ® Ibid. fol. 33.

* Tbid. fol. 46. * Ibid. Corbridge, fol. 8.
* Ibid. Greenfield, ii, fol. 834.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

house and issued a series of injunctions. Due care
was to be taken of the nuns who were ill, and
sick nuns in the infirmary should be attended to
according to their state and the nature of their
illness, so far as the means of the house allowed.
The prioress and sub-prioress were not to
permit boys or girls to eat flesh meat in Advent
or Sexagesima, or, during Lent, eggs or cheese, in
the refectory, contrary to the honesty of religion,
but at those seasons when they ought to eat
such things they should be assigned other places
in which to eat them.

Mendicant friars were not to enter the private
places of the house, but were to be received out-
side the cloister and inner cloister of the nuns,
in the hall of the hospitium, or some other
exterior building appointed for the purpose.
However, they might hear the confessions of the
nuns in the church. No one admitted as a
sister was to wear the black veil, and the prioress
was not to place sisters above nuns, contrary to
the rules and the honesty of religion.

The prioress and all the nuns were ordered
not to allow William de Tymberland, or any
other man, to sleep in the wool-house under the
dormitory of the nuns, or elsewhere within the
inner cloister, whence it would be possible to
have access to the nuns, or for the nuns to have
access to that building.

The archbishop concluded with the usual
prohibition as to giving exeats for longer periods
than fifteen days, or without good cause, as well
as selling corrodies, granting long leases, and
taking boarders, &c.

Archbishop Melton in 1319” strictly forbade
frequent goings to and fro in the cloister, either
by the priests who held corrodies (per preshyteros
corredianos), or their servants who were in the
habit of fetching their food and liveries through
the middle of the cloister. Such were to be
delivered in outside places appointed for the
purpose. Those offending were each time to
fast on bread and water on Wednesday.

It would seem as if the nuns had hitherto been
dependent on the good offices of their relatives
and friends for their clothing, as the archbishop
directed that as it had appeared at his visitation
that those nuns who had no elders, relatives, and
friends (senes, parentes et amicos) lacked necessary
clothes, and so were afflicted by the cold con-
trary to the honesty of religion, such nuns so
lacking the assistance of friends should have the
necessary clothes as the means of the house
allowed.

The prioress was enjoined to take counsel
with the older nuns, and in all writings under
the common seal a faithful clerk was to be em-
ployed, and the deed was to be sealed in the
Presence of the whole convent, the clerk reading
the deed plainly in the mother tongue and

” York Archiepis, Reg. Melton, fol. 134.

explaining it, and those who spoke against it on
reasonable grounds were to be heard, and if
necessary the deed was to be corrected. The
prioress and convent were to provide themselves
with a competent gardener for their curtilage, so
that they might have an abundance of vegetables.
No nuns or sisters, &c., were to be taken, or
girls over twelve retained without special licence.

Archbishop Zouch on 1 February 1343 3
wrote to the Prioress and convent of Sinning-
thwaite concerning Margaret de Fonten, one of
their nuns who had left the house pregnant, but
as she had only done so once, her penance was
mitigated and she was not to be locked up,
but not allowed to go out of the cloister and
church.

On 25 May 14827 Alice Etton, nun of
Sinningthwaite of the Cistercian order, received
a dispensation super defectu natalium, and on
29 May” her election as prioress was confirmed
by Archbishop Rotherham. At a later period
the house had fallen heavily into debt, and
Archbishop Lee (13 February 1534) ”! granted
the nuns licence to pledge jewels to the value of
£15 in consequence of the reduced state of the
nunnery. At the end of the same year”
Anne Goldesburgh resigned the office of prioress,
and the convent deputed the choice of her
successor to the archbishop. He appointed
Katherine Foster, who is described as a nun of
the order of St. Benedict, and a yearly pension
of £10 was assigned to Anne Goldesburgh,
which she was receiving at the Dissolution.

In September 1534 Archbishop Lee visited
Sinningthwaite, and issued injunctions in English
which have been printed in full by Mr. W.
Brown”; an outline must suffice here. The
prioress was to provide that the doors of the
cloister were locked every night ‘ incontinent as
compleyn is done,’ and not unlocked in winter
till 7 o’clock the next morning, or in summer
not till 6 o’clock. Every night the prioress was
to provide that the door ‘of the dortore be surely
and fast lockyd, that none of the susters may gett
ou;tt vntill service tyme, ne yet any parsone gett
in to the dortore to them.’ No secular women
of any kind weretosleep in the dorter. Hence-
forth no secular or religious persons were to have
any resort to any of the sisters ‘ onles it be their
fathers or moders or other ther nere kynsefolkes
in whom no suspicion of any yll can be thought.”
The prioress was to admit no one to her own
company ‘suspectly or be in familier communi-
cation with her in her chamber or any odre
secret place.’

The sisters and nuns were to keep no secular
women to serve them, unless sickness demanded it,

18 Ibid. Zouch, fol. 1534.

19 Tbid. Rotherham, fol. 20.

0 Ibid. " Thid. Lee, fol. 894,
7 Tbid. fol. rod.

8 Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xvi, 440

| 177 23

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The ‘firmaresse’ (infirmarian), if there were one,
was to see that the sick were in want of nothing.
Silence was enjoined ‘in the quere, in the cloyster
frater and dorter according to their rule under
payne of cursyng.’ All the sisters were to eat
and drink ‘both dynner and sooper in oon
housse at oon table,’ &c., unless ill, and all the
sisters were to sleep in the dorter. “The granting
of ‘ corrodies, pensions, or lyveres,’ and leases, &c.,
was placed under the restriction of the arch-
bishop’s licence being required.

The prioress was not to admit anyone ‘ to the
professid habite of a nune, or a suster, or a con-
verse, * or allow anyone to sojourn within the
precinct of the monastery, without the arch-
bishop’s special licence.

The prioress and convent were not to take any
person, secular or religious, to hear her or the
nuns’ confessions without the archbishop’s licence.

No money was to be received for admitting a
nun, or converse” by reason of a previous compact,
‘ for such admissions be dampnable and be plane
simonye’; free gifts need not be refused. ‘The
nuns were to be present at divineservice, and the
prioress was to provide them with ‘sufficient
meatt and drinke at convenient hoores, that is to
sey, that their dynner be ready at xj of the clock
or sone after, and their sooper at v of the cloke
or sone after.’

The priory of Sinningthwaite was supervised by
the commissioners on 10 June 1535,°° and sup-
pressed on 3 August following. Anne Goldes-
burgh, quondam priorissa, received £4 10s. as her
half year’s pension, 10s, apparently being meanly
deducted from the full sum. Richard Huley
and Thomas Holme are mentioned as the chap-
lains, and Katherine Foster as ‘ nuper priorissa.’
There were nine nuns besides the prioress, and
eight servants and other labourers. A chalice,
wholly gilt, with its paten, weighing together
II 0z., was all the plate belonging to the priory.

PRIORESSES OF SINNINGTHWAITE

Christiana, occurs 1172 *7
Agnes, occurs 1184

* This indicates three classes of persons admitted to
the habit of a nunnery: (1) the nuns, (2) the lay-
sisters, and (3) the converses. The first were distin-
guished in habit by wearing the black veil (and, as a
penance, its disuse was often enjoined), the lay-sisters
wore a white veil. The conversi were clearly men,
as shown by the names of ‘conversi’ attached to
nunneries. Hence the allusion to the ‘ fratres’ of
several nunneries (Sinningthwaite among them).

** Here in the fourteenth paragraph of the Injunc-
tions the word is evidently used in an extended sense,
covering both the lay sisters and the ‘conversi’ or lay
brothers.

* K.R. Aug. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

” Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 465, no. vi.

* Thid. 466, no. vill.

Euphemia, occurs 1219 ”

Isabella, occurs 1276

Margaret, resigned 1314-15 *

Elizabeth le Waleys, resigned 1320

Sybil de Ripon, confirmed 1323,°° occurs
1327 3

Margaret Fitz Simon, occurs 1344 4

Margaret Hewit, died 1428 *

Agnes Sheffield, confirmed 1428 *°

... de Etton,®” occurs 1444

Alina, occurs 1444 8

Margaret Banke,*® died 1482

Alice Etton, confirmed 1482, died 1488

Elizabeth Squier, confirmed 1488 *#

Anne Goldesburgh, confirmed 1526," resigned

1534"
Katherine Foster, appointed 1534 *

39. THE PRIORY OF SWINE

The priory of Swine was founded by Robert
de Verli,! at some period prior to the death of
King Stephen, for his gift of the church of
St. Mary of Swine was confirmed to the nuns
there by Hugh Pudsey, Archdeacon of the East
Riding and Treasurer of York, which offices he
vacated in 1154, when he became Bishop of
Durham.

At first there is evidence that the house was in
some form a double monastery of men and women.

In a charter of Erenburgh, wife of Ulbert
Constable,? the brothers and sisters serving God
at Swine are alluded to, and in a charter of
Edward I in 1305 ® is an imspeximus of an undated
charter of Henry II to the brethren and nuns
of the house of Swine, taking their house, lands,
and possessions under his protection, and granting
them certain liberties. There is also, in the
same charter of Edward I, an inspeximus of a
charter of confirmation by Henry II to the
“brethren and nuns’ of Swine of their lands in

*® Burton, Mon. Ebor. 327; see also Yorks. Ing.
i, 276.

*° Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 464, no. v.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 604.

* Ibid. Melton, fol. 141.

8 Tbid. fol. 158, a prioress (name unknown) inter-
vened between her and Eliz. de Waleys.

%8 Plac. de Banco, Mich. 2 Edw. III, m. 213.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 203.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 322.

* Tbid., where the name is printed Aliva, an
obvious error for Alina.

* Tbid.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 20.

“ Tbid. fol. 124. “ Ibid.
* Ibid. Wolsey, fol. 98.
“ Thid. Lee, fol. 104. * Ibid.

' Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 493.
* Ibid. 494, no. i.
Chart. R. 98 (7 Nov. 33 Edw. I).

178

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

frankalmoign. Again, in 1344,‘ in a charter of
Edward III, the former charters of Edward I and
Henry II are spoken of as made to the ‘ master
and canons of the house of Swine,’ while the
second charter of Henry II is more particularly
alluded to as having been to the ‘church of St.
Mary of Swine and the nuns’ there. The
matter is not altogether clear. There is no in-
dication that Swine was in any way connected
with Sempringham, or the Gilbertine order, but
its constitution, as revealed bya visitation of Arch-
bishop Giffard in 1267-8,° is something very like
a Gilbertine house, with its canons and conversi,
and the nuns and lay-sisters. It is however
noteworthy that when appealing for outside
assistance in regulating its affairs, Archbishop
Romanus ® did not apply to Sempringham, but to
the Abbot of Prémontré and the abbots of that
order, assembled in their general chapter.

In 12367 Saer II of Sutton quitclaimed to the
prioress, Sybil, and her successors the advowson of
Drypool, and also gave certain marsh lands. The
prioress, on her part, granted that she and her
successors would find a suitable chaplain and clerk,
vestments, and all necessaries for a service in the
chapel of St. George at Ganstead for the souls of
Saer, his ancestors and successors, and a free
chantry in his manor of Southcoates, such as he
formerly had at his own charges.

Among the later benefactors of Swine should
be mentioned the munificent Walter Skirlaw,
Bishop of Durham, ® a native of the parish, whose
sister was at one time prioress. By his will,
dated 7 March 1403-4,° Bishop Skirlaw be-
queathed £100 to the monastery of the nuns of
Swine for a perpetual obit, and by a codicil
(1 August 1404) ” signed in the great hall of the
manor-house of Howden, in the presence of his
sister Joan, Prioress of Swine, the bishop be-
queathed 100s. to Katherine Punde, one of the
nuns of Swine.

According to the Taxation of 1291 the church
of Swine was rated at £53 6s. 8d.,".and the tem-
poralities of the prioress at £48. In a return
made in 1526 ” the clear yearly value was stated
to be £78, and according to the Valor Ecclesiasti-
cus® £83 35. odd.

When Archbishop Giffard held a visitation on
13 January 1267-8" it was found that Amice
de Rue (presumably one of the nuns) was a

‘Chart. R. 139 (21 June 18 Edw. III).

5 Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 146.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 614.

"Feet of F. Yorks. file 30, no. 1 (East. 20
Hen. III).

* Burton, Mon, Ebor. 253.

® Test. Ebor. i, 309.

" Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 493.

™Dom. P. 1526 (return by Brian Higdon),
see L. and P. Hen. VIII, iv, 2001.

® Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 114.

4 Archbp. Giffards Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 147-8.

slanderer, untruthful, careless, hurtful and re-
bellious towards the convent, and so were nearly
all the others when the faults of the delinquents
were made known in chapter, to such an extent
that the prioress, or her vicegerent, without the
help of the archbishop was unable to effect cor-
rections, as the observance of the rule required.
Silence was not kept in church, cloister, refectory,
or dormitory. Three nuns, sisters by birth and
profession, by name Sybil, Bella, and Amy,
often rebelled against the corrections made by
the prioress, and three other sisters, Alice de
Scruteville, Beatrix de St. Quintin, and Maud
Constable joined them. The sick nuns were
badly provided for, and had little more to eat
than those who were well had in the refectory,
though Saer de Sutton had formerly given half a
bovate of land to provide for the sick nuns and
sisters, of which they received nothing. Alice
Brun and Alice de Adeburn had received their
veils simoniacally.!* Money which had been
given to the convent out of charity for pittances,
and purchasing shifts (camisias) and other ne-
cessaries, the prioress received, and it would be
better kept by two honest nuns, and never put
to other uses. The nuns were not properly pro-
vided with shoes, only receiving one pair a year ;
similarly, as regarded clothes, they scarcely re-
ceived a single tunic in three years, and a single
cloak in twenty, unless they were able to beg
more from relatives and secular friends. ‘The
prioress was a suspected woman, too credulous,
and too ready of tongue, breaking out in correction
and frequently for equal offences dealt unequal
punishments, and with long-continued hatred
persecuted those she hated, until an opportunity
came for wreaking her vengeance; so that the nuns,
when they realized that they would receive too
heavy a punishment, contrived by the threats of
their neighbours that the severity would be miti-
gated. ‘There were many discords between the
nuns and the sisters, and the sisters maintained
that they were the equals of the nuns, and might
wear the black veil like nuns, which was not the
custom in other houses.!® Two windows, through
which the food and drink of the canons and con-
versi were passed, were not properly kept by the
nuns, called janitrices, so that suspected confabu-
lations between the canons and conversi on the
one part, and the nuns and sisters on the other,
frequently took place.

The door which led to the church was very
carelessly kept by a secular servant, who allowed
the canons and conversi to enter in the dusk that
they might hold conversations with the nuns and

6 That is, no doubt, payment beforehand had been
made to the monastery on condition that they were to
be received as nuns, a fault often condemned.

© On 21 June 1311 Archbishop Greenfield issued
a general order that nuns only, and not sisters, were
to use the black veil in the diocese of York ; York
Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 24.

179

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

sisters. The door used to be diligently kept bya
faithful and active conversus. The household of
Robert de Hiltun, kt., wandered dissolutely about
the cloister and parlour, and in a very suspicious
manner conversed with the nuns and sisters,
whence danger was suspected. Robert himself
was very troublesome, and for fear of his oppres-
sion the canons of the house lately, without the
consent of the convent, gave him a barn full of
corn, which should have been for the main-
tenance of the convent. The canons and con-
versi, under pretence of taking care of the external
property of the house, wasted it, which, if it were
carefully looked after, would suffice for the main-
tenance of all. The nuns were only receiving
bread, cheese and ale, and on two days in the
week they only had water. The canons, how-
ever, and their accomplices were having plenty,
and were daintily provided for. It was found
that the house of Swine could not maintain more
nuns or sisters than were then there. Moreover,
the house was in debt to the amount of 140
marks at least, and on that account the archbishop
decreed that no one was to be received as nun or
sister without his consent. The correction of
these matters, if not carried out by the canons
and convent within a short time, the archbishop
specially reserved to himself to effect, as soon as
he had leisure.

It is not improbable that the disclosures made
at this visitation had as their ultimate re-
sult the removal of the canons not many years
later.

On 15 March 1267-8 ” the archbishop wrote
‘religiosis mulieribus et fil’ in Deo dilectis
Priorisse et canonicis de Swyne’ a letter which
dealt generally with the conduct of the nuns and
sisters. Nothing is said about the canons, but a
custos of the house is alluded to, and for the
better providing of the convent, 40 marks was
to be entrusted to one of the brothers,'8

That the separation of the canons and nuns of
Swine was being effected about this time seems
also clear from a letter addressed by Archbishop
Romanus on 3 September 12871* to the abbots
of the Premonstratensian order, then assembled in
their general chapter, asking that Brother Robert
de Spalding, canon of Croxton, of their order,
whom with special consent of the abbot he had
appointed master of the house of the poor women
of Swine, might be allowed to hold that office,
so that he could assist by his circumspect indus-
try in relieving the poverty and downfall which
threatened. Here Swine is alluded to as a house
of women, as if it were intended to lay special
stress on the fact that it was no longer a double
monastery.

" Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. 249.

* The word ‘frater’ was commonly applied toa
concersus. The ccnversi continued at Swine after the
removal of the canons.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 614.

180

In 1289” another member of the St. Quintin
family is met with asa nun, and on 10 May
the archbishop directed the prioress to restore the
black veil to her, which on account of her de-
merits had been taken from her for a year. On
4 January 1289-90,” the archbishop wrote to
the Abbot of Croxton, asking that Brother R. de
Spalding might be allowed to continue his work
at Swinetill Easter. The abbot had recalled him
just at a time when his labours were bearing fruit,
and the archbishop asked that he might remain
till he had been able to render a complete state-
ment of affairs, which would be, God willing,
before Easter. Less than a month later (30 Jan-
uary),” the archbishop addressed a general letter
universis, &c., saying that R. de Spalding, whom
his abbot had recently permitted to be appointed
master of the nuns of Swine, had laboured most
industriously and commendably in regard to the
affairs of the house. On 28 September,” Josiana
de Anlaghby was appointed prioress, Cecilia de
Walkingham having resigned, and on the
following day the archbishop commissioned the
Master * and Prioress of Swine to inquire the
names of the nuns who acted disobediently to-
wards them, and did evil to the house on the
occasion of the creation of the new prioress, that
they might be sent to Rosedale vestri ordinis,*
there to dwell in penance.”* The master and
prioress were also ordered to send Elizabeth de
Rue to Nunburnholme ” under the charge of a
brother of the house and a horseman. The
archbishop further directed by a letter to the
Master and Prioress of Swine that they were to
restore to Elizabeth de Arranis,”* their nun, the
veil of consecration (consecracionis velum) which she
had laid aside on account of her transgression, but
she was the more firmly to persevere with the
rest of her penance. On 3 April following” the
archbishop appointed Robert Bustard, canon of the
house of St. Robert of Knaresborough, Master of
Swine in place of Robert de Spalding, but next
year he wrote to the Master of St. Robert’s that
he had not administered the affairs of Swine cir-
cumspectly, and the archbishop asked that he
might be recalled to Knaresborough. Inanother
letter,*! to the prioress and convent, the archbishop
stated that for reasons which he did not care to
give at the time, Helewyse Darains, one of their
nuns, was to be sent to Wykeham for a time,
while a nun of that house, of good and praise-
worthy conversation, was to come to them.

Archbishop Newark notified the convent of a
proposed visitation on ‘Tuesday after the feast of

» Ibid. fol. 62. " Ibid. fol. 624.
” Thid. fol. 63. ® Ibid. fol. 634,
isa ‘Commissio Magistro et Priorisse de Swyna.
id.
* Rosedale was a Cistercian house.
* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 634.
7” Ibid. 8 Ibid. ® Ibid. fol. 64
© Ibid. fol. 644, " Ibid. fol. 66.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

St. Giles in his first year (1 September 1298),%?
and from a part of the injunctions which he gave
on that occasion, which are legible, it appears that
silence was to be more properly observed, and the
doors more diligently guarded; the nuns were
not to use large collars, barred girdles, or laced
shoes (zolariis longis, zonis barratis et sotularibus
Jaqueatis).

Archbishop Corbridge issued a commission on
g April 1303 * to Roger de Mar, succentor of
York, to correct the matters discovered at the
visitation of Swine, and to inquire into the tem-
poral and spiritual condition of the house, and to
confirm, if needed, the election of a new prioress.
There does not, however, appear to be any record
of the visitation itself.

In 1306 **a letter was addressed by Archbishop
Greenfield to the rural dean of Beverley, as to a
case promoted against John, the son of Thomas
the Smith of Swine, for fornication committed
with Alice Martel, nun of Swine. On 2 Feb-
ruary 1308* the archbishop wrote to Joan
de Moubray, the prioress, and the convent, for-
bidding them to make any alienations or new
leases of their lands or rents or other property,
to the injury of the house, and on 21 April *®
following he forbade them to take boarders, &c.
Whether these two letters directly led to her
resignation or not does not appear, but a little
afterwards *’ the archbishop directed the nuns to
make due provision for Joan de Moubray, their
late prioress; Once again we hear of a case
of immorality in a letter addressed in 1310 *8
to Roger de Driffield (quondam abbati) of Meaux
concerning Brothers Robert de Merflet and
Stephen de Ulram his fellow monks, who had

been guilty of incontinence and incest with Eliza-.

beth de Ruda, nun of Swine.

On 26 January 1318 * Archbishop Melton
issued a commission to Richard de Melton, rector
of Brandesburton, to inquire into the excesses of
the nuns of Swine, and on 20 February ® he sent
the nuns a long list of injunctions, in which he
enjoined the prioress and sub-prioress to keep
convent, and ordered that his predecessor’s in-
junctions were to be observed. The prioress
for the time being was to see that the house
was reasonably served with bread, ale and
other necessaries. The prioress and convent,
according to their rule, were to say matins
with the other canonical hours each day of the
year with note, unless lawfully prevented. ‘The

™ York Archiepis. Reg. Newark, fol. 6, and on
15 Sept. 1298 he created Dominus W. Derains, rector
of Londesborough, Master of Swine. Ibid.

* Ibid. Corbridge, fol. 38.

* Thid. Greenfield, fol. 344.

% Tbid. fol. 112. 36 Tbid. fol. 113.

* Ibid. fol. 118.

* Ibid. slip between fol. 121 and 122.

* Tbid. Melton, fol. 2734.

Thid. fol. 274.

prioress and all who had administration of the
goods of the house were without delay to have
the dormitory covered, so that the nuns might
quietly and in silence be received in it, without
annoyance from storms, and they were to have
the roofs of other buildings repaired as soon as
might be. No nun able to be present at divine
offices was to be excused from them on account
of any external occupation, unless the great neea
of the house demanded it, and as to that the
archbishop charged the conscience of the prioress
as she would answer to the Most High. The
prioress was to make both old and young nuns
keep to the cloister at due times, and especially
the young ones who had not yet rendered their
service. All the nuns, not being sick, were to
sleep in the dormitory, and not in different places,
causing scandal to arise against them. No bro-
thers or other guests were to be received inside
the inner door, to eat, drink, or pass the night
under any condition. No nun was to presume,
under pain of the greater excommunication, to
use supertunics, barred girdles, in one combina-
tion of garment, outwardly or inwardly cut, or
ornamented in a curious fashion.

On 2 January 1319-20‘! the archbishop wrote
to the prioress and convent to receive Symon
called Chapeleyne and Geoffrey Palmer in fratres
vestros et conversos—an interesting fact, as bearing
further on the existence of conversi attached to
houses of nuns.

In September 1320% the prioress, Josiana de
Anlaghby, resigned on account of old age, and
the archbishop directed the nuns to make due
provision for her, who for a long period had
laudably performed her duty.

In 1335 * William Bomour, conversus of the
house of the nuns of Swine, on account of his
excesses, which had been found out at a recent
visitation, was transferred for a time to the monas-
tery of Sawley at the cost of the house of Swine.
In 1358%* Archbishop Thoresby ordered the
nuns to receive back one of their number, Anne
de Cawode, who had twice broken her vow and
left their house, but no very bad record seems
to be charged against her, except the bare fact of
her apostasy.

In 1410,*° at the request of the Prioress and
convent of Swine and the vicar and inhabitants
of the parish, Archbishop Bowett transferred the
feast of the dedication of the church of Swine
from 7 August to the Sunday next before the
feast of St. Margaret each year, so as not to
interfere with the ingathering.

The house, here said to be ‘of the order of
St. Bernard,’ although well under the £ 200 limit,
was exempted from suppression on I October

‘| Ibid. fol. 278.

"1 Thid. fol. 2794.

* Thid. 323.

“ Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 1984.
Ibid. Bowett, fol. 175.

181

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

1537, Helen Deyn then being prioress ; ** she
must have died or resigned shortly after this date,
as the priory was surrendered on 9 September
1539 * by Dorothy Knight, the prioress, and
nineteen nuns.‘

It is interesting to trace two of these ladies
later. In 1552—3,*° when an inquiry was made
on complaint of the non-payment of pensions to
ex-religious, it was reported: ‘Elizabeth Grym-
ston of thage of xxxvj yeres and pencon by yere
xli* viij* and is maried to oon Pykkerd of
Welwek, and paid.’ Of another it is reported :
‘Elisabeth Tyas morant apud Tykhill, and now
maried to oon John Swyne gentilman, and pen-
con by yere xls and paid.’

Dorothy Knyght, the late prioress, was also alive
“of thage of | yeres and pencion xij" vj° viij*
and paid.’ Elizabeth Clifton (another nun) ‘ of
thage of xl yeres and pencon by yere Ixvj° viij’,
and haith sold her pencon to’ [ ], while
Elizabeth Elsley ‘pencon by yere xls and re-
maynyth w' master Barton at Northallerton as
it is seid.’

PRIORESSES OF SWINE

Helewis, occurs 1227, mentioned 1236"

Sibil, occurs 1236”

Maud, occurs 1240-1 8

Sibil, occurs 1252 *4

Mabel, occurs 1280 5

Gundreda, resigned 1288

Cecilia de Walkingham, confirmed 1288," re-
signed 1290 8

Josiana de Anlaghby, confirmed 1290," occurs

1293

Joan de Moubray, occurs 1308,% resigned
1309 @

Josiana de Anlaghby (second time), resigned
13208

Cecilia, occurs 1338 %

Joan Skirlaw, occurs 1404
Isabel Chetwynd, occurs 1437 %
Maud Wade, resigned 1482

“ L. and P. Hen. VIII, xii (1), 1008.

* Ibid. xiv (2), 141. * Tbid. xv, p. §53.

* Baildon, Mom. Notes, i, 207.

* Feet of F. file 30, no. 1 (East. 20 Hen. III).

* Ibid.

® Feet of F. file 59, no. 57 (Hil. 8 Edw. I).

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 62 [for
Walkington in the ordinary lists read Walkingham].

*7 Ibid. 55 Ibid. fol. 634. * Tbid.

“ Coram Rege R. 137, m. § (Trin. 21 Edw. I;
see . to her sister Margery, an idiot, 1289, Yorks. Ing.
li, 89.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 112.

* Tbid. fol. 118.

“ Ibid. Melton, fol. 2796.

“ Baildon, Afon. Nores, i, 207.

"York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 324.

Joan Kelk, confirmed 1482

Beatrice Lowe, confirmed 1498 ©

Cecilia Eland, confirmed 1506

Elena Dene, confirmed 1520,” occurs 1537
Dorothy Knight, surrendered the house

1539”

The circular seal’ 13 in. in diameter, used
in King Stephen’s time, has a representation of
our Lady seated, holding a lily, sceptre, and a
book. ‘The legend is :—

HH SIGILLVM sCE MARIE DE SVINE

The second seal” is a vesica, 2 in. by 12 in.,
having our Lady crowned and seated and hold-
ing the Child. Below is the prioress kneeling
in prayer. The legend is :—

HH s’ PRIOR .... . SCE MARIE DE SVINA

40. THE PRIORY OF WYKEHAM

The priory of St. Mary? of Wykeham was
founded about 1153” by Pain Fitz Osbert for
Cistercian ® nuns.

The grants of land made by different donors
are enumerated by Burton * in alphabetical order,
but the authorities he cites in support are in the
appendix to his work, as yet unprinted.

With regard to the church of Wykeham a
deed is printed in the Monasticon.® It is by

* Ibid.

Thid.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 524.

™ L. and P. Hen, VIII, xii, 1008 ; ‘Helen Deyn.’

* Thid. xv, p. 553.

™ Cat. of Seals, B.M. 4133; Add. Chart. 26108.

* Ibid. 4135, Ixxv, 12.

‘In the charter of confirmation by King John
“St. Michael,’ and also in a deed by the dean rural
and chapter of Ryedale ; Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 670,
no. ili, vi.

* When Henry Murdac was Archbishop of York,
and Bernard Prior of Bridlington.

5° Speed, relying on Gervase of Canterbury, says
that Wykeham was a house of Gilbertine canons and
nuns, and the editors of the Monasticon (v, 669 n.)
mention a deed in which one Walter de Harpham is
spoken of as ‘rector domus de Wickham’ together
with the convent, no mention being made of a
prioress, but there is nothing to indicate that the
‘rector’? of Wykeham mentioned was in any other
position than that of a ‘custos,’ or guardian of the
house. A parallel case occurs in regard to Nun
Appleton (where there is no idea that there were
religious of both sexes) in a charter of Eustache de
Merch which is addressed ‘ priori et sancti monialibus’
of that house (B.M. Cott. MS. xii, fol. 46). After-
wards the house is definitely described as Cistercian in
the Registers at York.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 255-7.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 670, no. v.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 493.

182

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Hugh, Prior of Bridlington, reciting an earlier
one by Bernard (prior c. 1150), addressed to the
Archbishop of York, which records that Wlmar,
priest of Wykeham, and two other persons ¢ Urca
filius Karli,’ and Gamellus, of whom Wlmar
held a portion of the church, had together
appeared, and offered at the altar of Bridlington
all the right they possessed in the church of
Wykeham, and as asign of their gift Wlmar
had offered three candles in the presence of
many witnesses. This right, which Bridlington
had so obtained in the church of Wykeham,
Prior Hugh (occurs 1189-92) and his convent
conceded to the nuns of Wykeham.

The priory, church, cloisters, and twenty-four
other houses or buildings having been accident-
ally burnt down at Wykeham, and the nuns
losing all their books, vestments, chalice, &c.,
Edward III relieved them for twenty years of an
annual payment of £3 12s. 7d. for lands held
by them in the honour of Pickering, part of the
duchy of Lancaster.’ It seems possible that the
fire had really taken place some years previously,
for in 1321’ the church of All Saints was
spoken of as ruinous, and was pulled down, and
a chapel erected on or near the site by John
de Wycham, in honour of St. Mary and St.
Helen. This by the king’s licence was granted
to Isabel, the prioress, and the convent, and was
endowed by him with 12 marks annually, for
the finding of two chaplains to celebrate in it
for the soul of John de Wycham and others.®
The ordination of the chapel was confirmed by
Archbishop Melton in 1323.°

In 1314? Archbishop Greenfield held a visi-
tation of the priory of Wykeham, when he
issued a set of injunctions, almost identical with
others sent to Yedingham at the same time.
No nun was to absent herself from divine ser-
vice by reason of her occupation oferis de serico.
Goings to and fro of seculars, men or women,
through the cloister to the kitchen, or other
places inside the house, were not in future to be
permitted. The parlour was not to be used
by the lay folk of the house. The prioress was
to take care that the nuns did not make them-
selves conspicuous as to their girdles, or any
other part of their habit, or wear anything except
what was conformable with religion.

Rebellious nuns were to be punished in the
presence of the convent and not secretly, as such
open treatment was in accordance with divine
and human law.

Something was probably wrong in 135
for Archbishop Zouch issued a commission for
the visitation of the houses of Wykeham and

uu
I,

® Burton, Mon. Ebor. 257.

7 Ibid. 8 Thid,

* York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 242.
” Ibid. Greenfield, ii, fol. 1014.

" Tbid. Zouch, fol. 172.

Yedingham, the commissioners being instructed
to correct abuses, but there is no record of
what took place in consequence of the visita
tion.

In the early part of 1444 Archbishop Kemp
stated that recently at a visitation of the priory
of Wykeham very grave defects and crimes were
detected against the person of Isabella Westir-
dale, prioress of the said priory, who after she
had been raised to that office had been guilty of
incest with many men, both within and outside
the monastery. He therefore deprived her, and
immediately upon her deprivation sent her to
the house of the nuns of Appleton, there to
remain for a season.

The next time the archbishop had to deal
with Wykeham is scarcely more creditable to
the reputation of the house. It is a curious
story. The archbishop writing on the last day
of February 14507* to Elizabeth, the prioress,
called upon her to re-admit an apostate nun,
Katherine Thornyf, who, seduced by the Angel
of Darkness, under the false colour of a pil-
grimage in the time of the Jubilee, without leave
of the archbishop or his officials, or even of the
prioress, set out ona journey to the court of
Rome, in company of another nun of the house,
who, as it was reported, had gone the way of all
flesh, and on whose soul the archbishop prayed
for mercy. After the death of this nun, Kathe-
rine Thornyf had lived in sin with a married
man in London. She had come to the arch-
bishop, humbly seeking absolution. This he had
granted her, and as she was penitent, he sent her
back for re-admission. Whether the original
intention of the two nuns was genuine, or
whether the Jubilee was made an excuse for
leaving their monastery, is doubtful.

In the Taxation of 1291 the temporalities
were rated at £22 155.4 In 1527 the clear
annual value was returned as only £20,’ but
in the Valor Ecclesiasticus at £25 175. 6d.’®

Among the Suppression Papers” there is a
list of the nuns, twelve in number, besides their
prioress’® and their pensions. As in the case
of other houses the ages are entered, and have
been changed three years later. In the margin
is written ‘Religious,’ probably meaning they
desired to abide by their vows, and it is said
“All of good lyffing.” Katherine Nendyk heads
the list as prioress, and among the names of the
nuns is that of Isabella Nendyk, evidently a

1 Tbid. Kemp, fol. 894.

18 Thid. fol. 72.

“ Dugdale, Mou. Angi. v, 671.

Subs. R. 64, 303- (A return made by Brian
Higdon, Dean of York.)

6 Yglor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 145.

7 Suppression P. 1i, fol. 95. ;

18 According to Tanner there were only nine, but

the list gives the names, ages, and pensions of thirteen,
including the prioress.

183

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

member of the same family. A corrody was
also held by Thomas Nendyk. The prioress
received a pension of £6 135. 4d. Her will’? is
dated 7 May 1541. She was then living at
Kirkby Moorside, where she desired to be buried.
Among her bequests was one ‘to eght of my
susters that was professide in Wikham Abbey to
everie one of them yjs. viijd. to be taken of the
gauze or pledge of Sir William Ewrie Knyght.’
She also left to ‘Isabell Nandike my nece one
rabande of ij yerdes of silke and ij silver aglettes.’
At the inquiry in 7 Edward VI” as to the
payment of pensions nine names occur under
Wykeham. Six appeared with their patents
(including Isabel Nendyk), and in each case an
entry is made that they were unpaid fora whole
year. Three ‘appeared not,’ and perhaps were
dead.

Prioresses OF WyYKEHAM

Eva, occurs 12357

Emma de Dunston, confirmed 1286,” re-
signed 1300 *

Isabella, occurs 1321," 1337

Isabella, occurs 1388,"° 1398”

Alice, occurs 1424 *

Isabella de Westirdale, deposed 1444”

Elizabeth, occurs 1450 °°

Elizabeth Edmundson, died 1487 *

Katherine Warde, elected 1487 ”

Alice Horneby, elected 1502," died 1508 *

Katherine Nendyk, elected 1508 *

The 13th-century seal * is a vesica, 29 in.
by 12in., with our Lady crowned, sceptred, and
seated, holding the Child. Of the legend only
the word sIGILLV remains.

HOUSE OF CLUNIAC MONKS

47, PRIORY OF PONTEFRACT
The priory of St. John of Pontefract was
founded in 1090! by Robert de Lacy. The
house was dedicated to the honour of St. John?
the Evangelist, and subjected to the Cluniac
monks of La Charité-sur-Loire,?> the order
being then popular and in ‘good odour and
honest fame.*” The first monks, it appears,
had formerly lived in the St. Nicholas’ Hospital,
and had come from the house of La Charité a
few years previously.® St. Nicholas’ being near
the new monastery was now given to the monks
for the use of the poor, and the collegiate
chapel of St. Clement was not to be conferred

® Test. Ebor. vi, 131, where attention is drawn to
a short pedigree of Nandwick in Glover's Visitation
(Foster's ed.), 557.

® Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 24 (dated 20 Feb.
7 Edw. VI).

| Feet of F. Mich. 19 Hen III.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 50.

* Ibid. Corbridge, fol. 23.

* Ibid. Melton, fol. 242.

* Burton, Mom. Ebor. 257.

*® Baildon, Alon. Neecs, 1, 228.

* Baildon’s MS. Notes. * Ibid.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 89d.

*° Ibid. fol. 72.

* Ibid. Rotherham, i, fol. 554.

3 Ibid. Savage, fol. 62.

* Tbid. sed. vac. fol. 5464.

°° Cat. of Seal, B.M. 4377, lxxv, 19.

Dorks. Arch. Rec. xxv, 2.

*The donation is ‘to God and St. Mary and
St. John and my monks in Pontefract’ (Mon. Angl,
¥) 122),

* Padgett, Pontefract, 43.

‘Foundation Charter, Yorks. Arch. Rec. xxv, 17.

* Fox, Pontefract, 301, and Padgett, Op. cit. 43.

* Ibid.
* Thid

upon any other body of religious than the monks
of St. John.®

The establishment of the priory was for the
good estate of the founder and the souls of
William I, the founder’s parents—lIlbert and
Hawise—and all his ancestors and heirs ;7 and
the endowment included the churches of Led-
sham, All Saints, Kippax, Darrington, and
Silkstone. This donation was further enlarged
by the founder, c. 1090 and c. 1112, when he
conferred upon the house the chapel of Caw-
thorne, and other chapels, lands, and tithes.®

The Prior of St. John’s was not appointed by
election of the convent, but by the mother-house
of La Charité, and to this French monastery
the priory at Pontefract had to send a yearly
payment. But, as was the case with many alien
houses, this payment was confiscated during the
reign of Edward III.°

Toward the end of the year 1139 the aged
Archbishop Thurstan, who in his youth had
made a vow that he would ally himself to the
Cluniac order of monks, decided to fulfil his
vow. In extreme old age he bade solemn
farewell to the clergy at York, and entered
Pontefract Priory, taking the monastic vows there
on 25 January 1140. He did not, however,
Jong outlive this step. On § February he died.
Just before his death he recited the office of the
dead, and chanted the Dies irae, and then,
‘whilst the rest were kneeling and praying
around him, he passed away to await in the land
of silence the coming of that Day of Wrath, so
terrible to all, of which he had just spoken.’ ?

° Yorks. Arch. Rec. xxv, 18.

” Boothroyd, Pontefract, 319.

* Yorks, Arch. Rec. xxv, 18, 25, 26.

* Fox, Pontefract, 302. ” Fasti Ebor. 208.

184

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

When, some years afterwards, his grave! was
opened, the archbishop’s remains were said to be
found ‘sweet-smelling and undecayed.’™
The priory buildings were destroyed in the
Anarchy, and Gilbert de Gaunt, who had
claimed the estates but afterwards acknowledged
himself in error,!> made compensation for the
demolition by a donation of property at South
Ferriby, Lincs.# About 1153, during the
rebuilding of the priory, the monks received a
temporary residence at Broughton’® from Alice
de Rumelli, and in 1159 this new house was
consecrated by Archbishop Roger.'®

In 1156 the priory of Monk Bretton, or
Lund, was founded as in some way subordinate
to the priory of Pontefract. Difficulties and
disputes soon arose between the two houses, and
were only finally settled by the renunciation of
the order of Cluny by Monk Bretton in 1280,
and its subsequent continuance as a Benedictine
Priory till the Dissolution, The subject is dealt
with more at length in the account of Monk
Bretton.

Copies of a great number of charters are given
in the Monasticon” and in the Chartulary,!® and
the various possessions of the house are con-
sequently known in minute detail. A bull of
Pope Celestine, c. 1190, also conferred the right
of interment on the priory, and gave to the
house, during the time of any general interdict,
the privilege of celebrating the Divine offices
with closed doors, ina low voice, without bells—
persons excommunicated and interdicted being of
course excluded from sharing such privilege.”®

A charter was issued in 1229 by Archbishop
Walter Gray, dealing exclusively with the
‘pensions’ to be paid to St. John’s by its
various churches: All Saints’, Pontefract, 12
marks ; Darrington I mark ; Ledsham 6 marks ;
Kippax 4s. ; Silkstone 100s. ; Slaidburn 6 marks,
and Catwick 3 marks.”

Evidently there was some disturbance in the
priorate in January 1268, for when Godfrey and
his convent presented ‘Ralph the deacon’ to
Ledsham, no archiepiscopal inquisition was
ordered, as the prior and some of the canons
were excommunicated by authority of the
legate." This same year, 1268, we are told
that certain of the monks had entered into the
monastery at Bretton.??

“Before the altar in the Priory Church ; Yorés.
Arch. Rec. xxv, p. Xxi.

# John of Hexham, Hiss. col. 268.

® Yorks. Arch. Rec. xxv, p. XX.

* Thid. ® Thid. 2.

* Dugdale, Mon, Angl. v, 118.

” Ibid. 118 et seq.

"Yorks. Arch. Rec. xxv.

* Lawton, Relig. Houses, 51.

® Yorks. Arch, Rec. xxv, 73.

7 York Archiepis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 13.

” Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 27.

3 185

In 1277 the prior, Godfrey, with some of his
monks, and others, were charged with the deaths
of ‘Thomas son. of Raymond, Thomas de
Ireton, and Richard de Scauceby, monks.’ An
inquiry was ordered to deal with the affair, the
king having been informed that appeals had been
maliciously procured against the prior.2%

In 1279 a visitation of the Cluniac houses was
made, and on 18 September the Abbot of Cluny
and others came to the priory at Pontefract. At
that time the brothers numbered twenty-seven,
including the prior. It was found that the
monks were leading good lives, that the daily
offices were duly performed, the buildings in a
good state of repair, the church well appointed,
and the food sufficient till the next harvest,
When the prior entered upon his office, twelve
years before, the house was in debt to the extent
of 3,200 marks, but the liabilities had been
reduced to 350 marks or even less; and, besides
this, the prior had obtained a small property of
2 carucates. It was also found that fifteen
years previously the priory had incurred an
obligation of 400 marks, the convent making
themselves liable for the amount to help the
brethren at Monk Bretton: such amount,
however, had been secured by bonds held from
the smaller house,”

Reference has been made to the pensions
received by the priory in 1229 from _ its
churches. By the year 1291 things had
changed considerably. Vicarages had been or-
dained in some of the churches, and the old
pension system was being superseded, the monks
receiving a much greater proportion of the
revenues. The tollowing comparison shows the
financial benefit which had accrued to the
priory :—

1229 1291

All Saints’, Pontefract (8 o o {30 0 0
Ledsham ; 4.0 0 10 0 Oo
Silkstone . . 2. . 5 0 O 57 6 8
Darrington . . . 013 4 #42=+13 6 8
Catwick® . . . 2 0 0 2 0 0%

In 1294 royal protection was granted to the
prior because he had given to the king a moiety
of his goods and benefices according to the taxa-
tion last made for a tenth for the Holy Land,”
and in 1310 Guichard, the prior, was nominated
attorney for the Abbot of Cluny. This same
Guichard was himself going ‘beyond seas’ in
1313, and received letters nominating attorneys
for him.?®

® Pat. 5 Edw. I, m. 5 d.

™ Padgett, Pontefract, 48.

*° No vicarage had been ordained at Catwick; the
pension therefore remained unchanged.

% Yorks, Arch. Rec. xxv (pp. XXxil, Xxxili).

7 Pat. 22 Edw. I, m. 27.

8 Ibid. 3 Edw. II, m. 9.

® Ibid. 7 Edw. I, pt. i, m. 20.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The town of Pontefract became famous during
the reign of Edward II as the place where
Thomas the Earl of Lancaster was executed by
the king’s order. His body was interred in
1322 in the priory church near the high altar.
Many miracles were said to have been wrought
at his shrine, and a chantry chapel *° was after-
wards founded to the memory of $ Saint’
Thomas.*!

Little seems to have been known of the priory
during the 15th century. The valuation of the
house in 1535 * was £472 165. 103d., the out-
goings £137 45., leaving a clear remainder of
£335 125. 10}d., and this ensured the mainte-
nance of the priory when the smaller houses
were dissolved. The commissioners arrived at
the priory in November 1538, and their report
was very complacent: ‘quietly takine the sur-
renders and dissolvyed the monasterie of Pount-
frette, wher we perceyved no murmure ore gruge
in any behalfe bot wer thankefully receyvede.’ *

The date of the surrender is 23 November
1539,°4 and pensions were granted to the prior
(£50) and twelve brethren,*® the prior, James
Thwaytes, being further appointed Dean of
St. Clement’s for life.

Priors oF St. Joun’s *8

Martin, temp. Hen. I

Walter, occurs c. 1120,” 1135
Reynold, occurs 1139

Adam, occurs c. 1145,°° 1156
Bertram, occurs c. 1170
Hugh, occurs 1184, 1195
Walter, occurs 1219

Robert, occurs 1225

Hugh, occurs 1226

Walter, occurs 1230

Fulk

* This chapel was built c. 1361 on the top of the
hill where the execution took place. In 1359 blood
was said to have been seen flowing from the tomb
of the martyred earl, his belt was reported to give
assistance to women in child-bearing, and his hat to
cure pains in the head. (Torre’s MS. 53.)

*! Padgett, Pontefract, 48.

3% Valor Eccl. v, 66.

* Padgett, Pontefract, 50.

“ L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (2 6.

ie (2), 57

* List in Chartu/. of Pontefract, 681.

* Ibid. 59. Abbot of Selby 1139

* Ibid. 64. First Prior of Monk Bretton.

* Ibid. 66.

Stephen, occurs 1235

Peter, occurs 1238, 1239

Dalmatius, occurs 1241-63 ®

S., occurs 1267 *?

Godfrey, occurs 1268 #-§3 #

Rayner

William, occurs 1300

Guichard de Cherleu, elected 1311

Simon de Castleford, occurs 1316

Stephen de Cherobles, appointed 1322, occurs
1343*

Simon Balderton, occurs 1366 *®

John Tunstal, occurs 1387, 1402

William Helagh, succeeded 1404 ; occurs 1409

Richard Haigh, occurs 1413-37

William, occurs 1442-46

John, occurs 1439

Nicholas Halle, occurs 1452

Richard Brown, occurs 1475,‘ 1481

John Flynt, occurs 1499

Richard Brown, occurs 1507, 1520

James Thwaytes, last prior, surrendered 1539

The 12th-century seal “° is a vesica, 2} in. by
1 in., having the eagle of the evangelist holding
ascrollin hisclaws. The broken legend reads :—

HH sIGIEL sCLIOH .. . . . EL’TE DE PONTEFRACTO

A counterseal™ of the 12th century is a vesica,
I} in. by 1fin., having the head of St. John,
with the legend :-—

+H VIRGO EST ELECTVS A DOMINO

The 13th-century seal®! of Prior Godfrey
shows a conventional representation of the house
with the prior seated within reading from a book
on which are the words f PNciPIo, the beginning
of St. John’s Gospel. The legend is :—

+H s’ FRIis GODEFRIDI PoRIS POTIS FRACTI
EBORAT DYOC CLVYN oRD

“Ibid. 516.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 9 d.
® Ibid. fol. 13.

“ Pat. 16 Edw. II, pt. i,m. 25.

“ Ibid. 17 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 35 d.
“ Pipe R. 40 Edw. III.

“” Cal. Pat. 1467-77, p. 564.

“ Ibid. 1476-85, p. 285.

* Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3852, xxiv, 96.
Ibid. 3853, Ixxiv, 97.

“Thid. 3854, xlix, 45.

186

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

HOUSE OF CLUNIAC

42, THE PRIORY OF ARTHINGTON

The priory of Arthington, the only house of
Cluniac nuns in the county,’ was founded by
Peter de Arthington, either at the end of the
reign of Stephen, or at the beginning of that of
Henry II, as appears from an award made about
Michaelmas, 26 Henry VI (1447), in a dispute
between John Arthington and the prioress and
convent.? Peter de Arthington gave the nuns
‘the place the whilk the said abby is byggyd on,
with all the appurtenaunces.’ Peter de Arthing-
ton’s son, Serlo, confirmed and added to his
father’s gift. Serlo de Arthington’s son, another
Peter, again confirmed the gifts of his father and
grandfather, and added ‘one acre of land in
Tebecroft, and allso all the watyre that thai may
lede to make yam a milne with, and to thair
other usez necessarez.’

Alice de Romeli gave a moiety of ‘ Helth-
wait,’ and pannage for forty hogs in her wood of
Swinden, and common of pasture for the nuns’
cattle in the same wood.? These latter gifts
were confirmed by Warin Fitz Gerald,* the king’s
chamberlain, and William de Curcy,® her son,
the king’s steward, subject to the condition that
each of them, and their heirs, should have the
right tonominate a nun in the house of Arthing-
ton. There is a grant by Edward I, dated
6 December 1306,°to Master Andrew de Tange
(for the time it remained in the king’s hands, by
reason of the minority of Robert, the son and
heir of Warin de Insula) of the right of present-
ing a girl as a nun of Arthington, a vacancy
having occurred there by the death of a nun who
was last placed there by the ancestors of the said
Robert.

The church of Maltby, near Doncaster, was
given to Arthington, and formally appropriated
to it by Archbishop Alexander Nevill in 1377-8.”
The nunnery also received other grants of land
in the neighbourhood, which are enumerated by
Burton in his account of the house,® but it was
always a small house.

‘It is included among the Benedictine houses in
the Monasticon (vol. iv, 518), and Mr. Baildon (Mon.
Notes, i, 3) heads the list of prioresses ‘ Benedictine
Nuns.’ But the Archiepiscopal Registers constantly,
with few exceptions, allude to it as of the Cluniac
Order, as does the list of nuns in the Suppression
Papers at the Record Office (vol. ii, 227).

"Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 518.

* Ibid. 519. *Tbid. 520, no. ii.

"Ibid. no. iii.

*Pat. 35 Edw. I, m. 42.

"Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 519.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 88

NUNS

A commission was issued on 20 July 1286,°
by Archbishop Romanus, to R. de Pickering,
H. Sampson, and R. de la Ford, to visit the
house, and this was followed by a letter from the
archbishop to the nuns, stating that the visitation
had revealed their condition to be so poor and
depressed that the income of the house scarcely
sufficed for their maintenance. He enjoined
them therefore, in virtue of their obedience, not
to alienate any land without his special licence.
Seven years later (perhaps matters had not im-
proved) the same archbishop, on 16 June 1293,)°
appointed Adam de Potrington, rector of Kippax,
curator and guardian of the temporalities and
spiritualities of the nuns of Arthington. On
20 January 1299-1300" the chapter (sede
vacante) granted licence to the sub-prioress and
convent to elect a successor to Maud de
Kesewik, deceased, and on 27 February
directed William de Yafford, chaplain, to
‘superintend’ all the movable goods belonging
to the monastery of Arthington at the time of the
death of Maud de Kesewik.

In 1303 Archbishop Corbridge wrote to the
Dean of Pontefract regarding the miserable con-
dition of Custance de Daneport of Pontefract,
who some time previously, deceived by the
blandishments of the world, had left her house of
Arthington, in which for many years she had
been a nun, and had apostatized. She was to be
received back and undergo the proper penance
prescribed by their rule.

On 9 June 1307 * a visitation of Arthington
was held, and Archbishop Greenfield at once
wrote to the prioress and convent concerning
four of the nuns, two of whom, Dionisia de
Heuensdale and Ellen de Castleford, were (pend-
ing the issue of general injunctions resulting
from the visitation) forbidden to go outside the
convent precincts. Two others, Agnes de
Screvyn (who had resigned being prioress in
1303) and Isabella Couvel, appear to have
asserted that certain animals and goods belonging
to the monastery were their private property.
These they were to be monished to resign within
three days to lawful and honest uses, according
to the judgement of the prioress.

There must have been discontent in the house
rather later, as on 13 March 1311-12” the
sub-prioress and convent were ordered to render

due obedience to Isabella de Berghby, their

® York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 27.

0 Tbid. fol. 424. Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 27.

1 Thid. fol. 274. 8 Ibid. Corbridge, fol. 19d.
4 Tbid. Greenfield, fol. 630.

' Thid. ii, fol. 55.

187

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

prioress, who had been placed in charge of the
house, and Isabella Couvel was joined with her
in the care of the conventual property. This
was followed on 30 August’® by a letter to
Mr. Walter de Bebiry, Dean of Ainsty, direct-
ing him to go to Arthington and inquire as to
Isabella de Berghby and Margaret de Tang,
nuns of the house, who had left it. He was to
find out with whom they had gone, and where
they were living. It is clear that Isabella de
Berghby had resented having another nun asso-
ciated with her in the management of the affairs
of the nunnery, and had cast off her habit and
gone abroad into the world. As to her com-
panion nun, who seems to have been a less
worthy person, we hear more afterwards. Al-
though Isabella de Berghby had gone off in this
fashion, she does not seem to have formally
quitted the post of prioress ; and no successor
seems to have been elected or appointed till she
took steps to return. On 19 September 1312”
(eighteen months after her departure) Maud de
Batheley, a nun of the house, was confirmed in
office, and four days later the archbishop wrote
to the new prioress and her convent that Isabella
de Berghby had come to him in the spirit of
humility, and he had absolved her from the sen-
tence of the greater excommunication which she
had incurred by leaving her house, and that he
sent her to them. ‘They were to receive her
back, but she was to take the last place in quire,
cloister, dormitory, and refectory, and was not to
go outside the cloister. The archbishop also
imposed a penance on Margaret de Tang. On
18 September 131578 Archbishop Greenfield
visited Arthington, and issued a series of injunc-
tions to the nuns. An account ofall the goods of
the house was to be made up by all the officers
every year before the feast of St. Andrew, and
shown to the prioress and three or four of the
more discreet nuns. The sick were to be pro-
perly tended in the infirmary according to their
needs, and as the means of the house allowed :
silence was to be duly kept, and all who could
were to be present at the services. The arch-
bishop further enjoined that no woman who was
received as a sister of the house should be allowed
to accept or wear the black veil.!? The prioress
and sub-prioress were not to allow boys or any
secular persons to sleep in the dormitory. In
future, when the prioress or sub-prioress allowed
any of the nuns to visit their parents or friends,
a limit of fifteen days was to be fixed for them
to return in. If they did not return then, or if
they were late, without a lezitimate cause, they

York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 57.

" Ibid. fol. 574. * Ibid. fol. 584.

The archbishop had, in 1 311-12, issued a general
order that nuns only and not sisters were to use the
black veil in his diocese (ibid. fol. 24). The disuse of
the black veil was often part of the penance imposed
on nuns guilty of serious offences.

were to be punished in chapter. Leave to go out
was only to be granted once or twice in the year,

In 1318” Archbishop Melton held a visita-
tion of Arthington, and issued a long series of
injunctions, many of which were repetitions of
those of his predecessor. He exhorted that unity
and true concord, without which there is no
true religion, should be nurtured, and that no
quarrels should prevail among the nuns. There
are the usual directions as to the due performance
of divine service, and the proper observance of
silence. All the nuns were to be assiduous in
their attendance at divine service, and those who
were remiss in this were to be punished by the
prioress and sub-prioress, and if that did not
suffice, their names were to be sent to the arch-
bishop, and he would see that they were so
chastised that the punishment of one should be a
warning to the other nuns. The sick were to
be duly tended, &c., and no outside secular
persons whosoever were to be allowed to
frequent the cloister, infirmary, or other private
place. As the archbishop found the house
burdened with various debts he enjoined all
possible economy. The old consuetudines of the
house were to be kept, and the dormitory,
refectory, and other buildings, which were
defective in their roofs, were to be repaired
without delay. The then prioress, and all her
successors, were enjoined that in sales of wool,
and all other important business matters, the
convent, or at least the greater and wiser portion,
should be consulted. A carucate of land at
‘Burghdon,’ belonging to the house, was to be
cultivated and sown, if it were unanimously
found that this would benefit the nunnery.

The prioress, and three or four more mature
and discreet nuns, were to have an account of all
the goods drawn up, showing also the debts and
credit of the house, and the corrodies, pensions,
and other obligations in full, under the convent
seal, for the archbishop. The injunction as to
the non-use of the black veil by the lay sisters
was repeated, as well as the direction that boys
and secular persons were not to sleep in the
dormitory with the nuns. The prioress and
sub-prioress were to eat with the nuns in
the refectory. The directions of Archbishop
Greenfield as to visiting friends were repeated,
with the addition that each nun to whom such
leave was given was to have another nun of
good report with her. The prioress was to keep
convent in quire, cloister, refectory, and
dormitory, unless lawfully hindered, and under
pain of deposition she was ordered not to grant
corrodies, pensions, or liveries, or lease for undue
length of time any manors or granges, and
further was to make no alienation of the
immovable goods of the house, nor to take any
nun, sister, or conversus, or to have any secular
women as boarders, without the archbishop’s

* York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 132.

188

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

special licence. ‘These salutary regulations were
to be read at least once a month in chapter
distinctly in dingua materna,

_ In 13197 we hear again of Margaret de
Tang who in 1312 had left the house with the
prioress, Isabella de Berghby. On 7 April
Archbishop Melton sent her to Nunkeeling to
undergo penance for her ‘ demerits’ at Arthing-
ton. Her penance was the usual type prescribed
for immorality : she was to fast on certain days,
be last in quire, &c., and receive the usual
disciplines. Again in 1321 ™ she was in trouble,
and it seems probable that if she ever reached
Nunkeeling she had again broken loose and
apostatized, for on § May the archbishop wrote
to the Prioress and convent of Arthington about
her. He says that, forgetful of her habit and vow
taken in their house, she had apostatized, and
committed grave and serious excesses, contrary to
the honesty of religion. He had, however,
absolved her, and sent her back to Arthington to
perform her appointed penance. ‘The prioress
and convent were to put her in some secure
place, and the access of secular persons to her
was forbidden. She was to say the whole of the
service as a nun, and two nocturns of the psalter,
and if her case needed it she was to be bound by
the foot with a shackle (ad modum compedis), but
without hurting her limbs or body. When the
prioress was assured of her contrition, the prioress
was to inform the archbishop. Afterwards,
when restored to the convent, she was to be the
last in church and refectory, and was not to
enter the chapter to hear the secrets, but every
day was to receive a discipline, and a beating
(fustigationem) up to the cloister, all secular
persons being excluded. ‘The prioress was also
to inform the archbishop how Margaret behaved
from the day of her return. Next year” the
archbishop appointed the Prior of Bolton to
supervise the state of the house, and on
22 February 1327,” with consent of the prioress,
appointed Robert de Tang custos of the house.

The next information about Arthington in the
Registers is that in 1349 %° Isabella de Berughby,
a nun of the house, was elected prioress. She was,
no doubt, the prioress, Isabella de Berghby, who
apostatized in 1312. If she was, for instance,
thirty years old in 1312 (and the appointment of
Isabella Couvel to assist her in the care of the
conventual property may have been due to her
youth and inexperience), she would only have
been sixty-seven in 1349. It may be assumed
therefore that in spite of her misbehaviour in the
interval this was her second term of office.

"York Archiepis. Reg. Melton fol. 276.

** Thid, fol. 146. Thid. fol. 1539.

* Thid. fol. 1724.

* Ibid. Zouch, fol. 37. The Monasticon (iv, $19)
and other lists give the name here as ‘Beningley,’
but in Zouch’s Register the spelling is quite clearly
“ Berughby.’

In the Register of Archbishop G. Nevill a very
curious error occurs regarding the election on
19 August 1475 ** of Katherine Willesthorp as
prioress. Both in the margin and in the text,
including the prioress’s vow of obedience, the
priory is spoken of as that of ‘Arneclyff,” a
name which cannot ever have belonged to it, and
the mistake must be a clerical error, Curiously
consistent throughout. On 17 May 14927
Elizabeth Popeley was confirmed in office as
prioress, and little more than two years after-
wards, on 26 August 1494,” she was deprived for
Incontinence and having given birth to a child,
and for wasting the goods of the house. Owing
to her contumacy and disobedience she was
deprived of a vote in the election of her successor,
Margaret Turton.

At the time of the Suppression ® there were
nine nuns in the house, including the prioress,
Elizabeth Hall, aged forty-five, and against each
name, except that of the prioress, is written
‘continue,’ meaning that they desired to con-
tinue in their vows, and there is a note, ‘All
these persons (including the prioress) be of good
religious liffying and not slanderid.’ Their ages
ranged from seventy-two to twenty-five years.
The list is headed ‘ Domus monialium Arthyngton
clunienc’ ordinis Sti Benedicti.’

The house was surrendered by Elizabeth Hall,
the prioress, and the convent on 26 November
1540.°° The clear annual value, according tothe
Valor Ecclesiasticus, was only £11 8s. 4d.,°+and at
the date of the surrender * the demesne lands
were valued at £5 8s. 4d., the site of the priory,
with its storehouses, orchards, gardens, and other
things within the precincts, being only valued at
55. a year.

Drs. Layton and Legh reported* that the
nuns had the Girdle of the Blessed Mary, as was
believed.

In 1543 the site was granted to Archbishop
Cranmer.**

York Archiepis. Reg. G. Nevill, fol. 1724. The
vow of obedience is as follows: ‘In Dei nomine.
Amen. I dame Kateryn Willesthorpe Prioresse
chossen of the house of Arneclyff swere and faithfully
promyttis obedience vnto my most Reu’nt fader in
God George be the mercy of God Tharchebisshop of
York, prymate of England and legate off the courte of
Rome and to all his successors lawfully enteryng and
too all y® officers and mynistres in all maner of
commaundmentes. So God help and thies holy
Euangelistez.’ Ibid. fol. 1724.

Ibid. Rotherham i, fol. 78d.

* P.R.O. Suppression P. ii, 227.

3° Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. iv, 519.

3 Valor Eccl. v, 16. There was a chantry founded
in the conventual church by Richard de Clifford
dominus de Westmorland, valued at £6 annually, and
then held by Parcival Wharton, chaplain.

3? Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 522, no. x.

31, and P. Hen. VIII, x, 363.

“Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 519.

* Ibid. fol. 82.

189

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

PriorESsES OF ARTHINGTON

Sara, 1241 °°

Eleanor, mentioned 1299 *

Maud de Kesewik, died 1299”

Agnes de Skrevin, succeeded 1299,” resigned
1302 *

Agnes de Pontefract, succeeded 1302

Isabella de Berghby, 1311 *

Maud de Batheley, confirmed 1312”

Isabella Dautry, died 1349

Isabella de Berughby (second time ?), elected

1349“

HOUSES

43. THE PRIORY OF KINGSTON-
UPON-HULL

Tickell! says that the site of the Hull Charter-
house was originally occupied by a small religious
house, ‘which appears to have been erected by
Edward the First, and given by him, along
with other lands in Myton lordship, to Sir Wil-
liam de la Pole... . This house, at first, was a
College of six Priests: but they disagreeing
among themselves were turned out, and the
Friers minor succeeded ; who, behaving no better
than their predecessors, soon shared the same fate.
This determined Sir William to pull down all
the old buildings, and to erect, on the site of
those buildings, a large monastery for the recep-
tion of Nuns of the Order of St. Clare.’
Unfortunately no authority is cited for all these
statements, although they are probably cor-
rect. The Letters Patent of Edward III? show

% Dep. Keeper's Rep. xxxvi, App. 182.
* Baildon, Mon. Nerrs,i, 3.
“York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. p.m. H. Newark,

fol. 27.
* Ibid. *® Ibid. Corbridge, fol. 154.
“ Tbid. “Ibid. Greenfield, il, fol. 55.

“Ibid. fol. 574.

“Ibid. ; Zouch, fol. 37.
“8 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 3.
“© Baildon’s MS. Notes.
“York Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 26.
Tbid. “Ibid. G. Nevill, fol. 1724,
Tbid. Rotherham, i, fol. 134.

‘ Tbid. fol. 119. * Tbid. 784.

“ Thid.

8 Tbid. 4 Thid. fol. 82.
Tbid. ® Tbid. fol. gz.
57 Thid. ‘Ibid. Lee, fol. 24.

‘ Hist. of the Town and County of Kingston-upon-
Hull, 195. From the foundation charter of Michael
de la Pole it would seem that a building called the
Maison Dieu had previously occupied the site, and
from the expressions used, it would seem that the
chapel was given to the monks for their use.

* Pat. 51 Edw. III, m. to.

Isabel de Eccope, occurs 1413 to 1420 *

Sibil Plesyngton, occurs 1437 *

Alice Raucestre, died 1463 “”

Marjorie Craven, elected 1463

Katherine Willesthorp, confirmed
died 1484

Alice Mawde (sacrista), appointed per lapsum
1484,° died 1492"

Elizabeth Popeley, confirmed 1492,” deprived
1494"

Margaret Turton, elected 1494,” died 1496 *

Alice Hall, elected 1496

Elizabeth Hall, elected 1532

1475,"

OF CARTHUSIAN MONKS

that William de la Pole’s original intention, for
which he had obtained the king’s licence, was to
found a certain hospital of chaplains and poor
folk, and to endow it with property in Kingston-
upon-Hull and Myton, but that afterwards, in
place of the proposed hospital, he determined on
founding a religious house of thirteen nuns of the
order of St. Clare,’ one of whom was to be
called abbess ; a certain number of poor persons
were to be maintained under their charge, and
for this the royal licence had been granted that
he might divert his originally proposed endow-
ments of the hospital to the nuns, and also give
the advowsons of the churches of Frisby, North
Cave, and Foston to the nuns or sisters and the
poor persons. William de la Pole dying before
his scheme was carried out, his son and heir,
Michael de la Pole, obtained from Edward III*
power to alter the scheme, and in place of the
nuns of the order of St. Clare to found a
monastery for thirteen monks of the Carthusian
order, one of whom was to be prior, and besides
this, as originally proposed, there were to be
thirteen poor men and thirteen poor women, one
of the former of whom was to be master; the
prior and monks and the master and the poor
folk might live together, or separately, according
to the ordinance which Michael de la Pole, or
his heirs or executors, should determine. In con-
sequence of this latter provision, although the
Charterhouse and the hospital were more or less
distinct there was a close connexion between
them, the prior of the monastery was given a
certain authority over the affairs of the hospital,
and it was commonly known as the Charter-
house Hospital.

By charter dated 18 February 1378° Michael
de la Pole founded in his messuage outside the
walls of Kingston-upon-Hull a religious house

*See the mandate of Urban V, issued 17 Jan-
1365. Cal. of Papal Letters, iv, 91.

* Pat. 51 Edw. III, m. 10.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 29, no. ii.

190

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

for thirteen monks of the Carthusian order, to
the honour of God, the glorious Blessed Virgin
Mary His Mother, the Blessed Michael arch-
angel, and all archangels, angels, and holy spirits,
and St. Thomas the Martyr, sometime Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and other saints of God,
which house he desired should be called the house
of St. Michael of the Carthusian order. With
assent of the prior of the Great Charterhouse, he
appointed Walter de Kele prior of his house,
which he endowed with the messuage aforesaid,
containing 7 acres of land, lately parcel of the
manor of Myton, and called the AZaison Dieu,
together with a chapel and other buildings erected
there for their habitation, and also the advowson
of the church of Foston, the manor of Sculcoates,
&c. The monks were enjoined to pray for King
Richard, for Katherine the founder’s mother,®
and Katherine his wife, Edmund his brother,
and Michael his son and heir, Alexander Nevill,
Archbishop of York, and a large number of other
distinguished persons separately named.

In the reign of Henry IV John Colthorpe and
Alice his wife endowed a cell for a monk of the
order of the house, who was daily to say mass
for their souls and for those of all faithful de-
parted.’ This cell, which was what would
ordinarily have been termed a chantry, possibly
augmented the number of monks, It was en-
dowed with a rental of 205. yearly, arising out of
a manor in Essex. ‘This the monks exchanged
with Michael de la Pole for land in Myton.
When the cell became vacant, the prior and con-
vent were to appoint another monk within three
months ; if they neglected to do so, they were to
forfeit £40 to the mayor and commonalty.

Richard II joined the prior and convent in a
petition to Pope Urban VI, stating that the
monastery had been founded for a prior and
twelve monks, but had not been sufficiently en-
dowed ; that the patronage of the church of
Hoggestorp (Hogsthorpe) in Lincoln diocese had
been given to it by lay patrons. Urban VI
thereupon appropriated Hogsthorpe Church to the
monastery for five years, and Boniface IX in
perpetuity, the values of the church and monastery
not exceeding 120 and 180 marks, respectively.
This appropriation had been included in a sub-
sequent general annulment of appropriations by
Pope Boniface in 1412, and the prior and convent
petitioned Innocent VII that the appropriation
of Hogsthorpe to their monastery might hold

* The will of Katherine, relict of William de la
Pole, senior, kt., dated 1 July 1381, directed that
her body was to be buried in the quire of the church
of St. Michael juxta Kyngestone super Hull of the
Carthusian Order. Test. Edor. (Surt. Soc.), i, 119.

" Tickell, Hist. of the Town and County of Kingston-
upon-Hull, 200. John Colthorpe had been mayor in
1389, and he and his wife were buried in St. Mary’s
Church, Hull, where, in Tickell’s time, an inscription
asking for prayers for their souls still remained.

good, in spite of the general annulment. On
23 June 1406 he granted their petition, and
confirmed the appropriation.® Subsequently the
monks complained that John Brynnesley, priest,
of the diocese of Lincoln, had despoiled them of
their church of Hogsthorpe in spite of this con-
firmation, and consequently Alexander I, on
2 July 1409, directed the Archbishop of York
to appropriate the church to them in perpetuity.”

The total annual value of the house in 1535
was £231 17s. 3d., and the clear annual value
only £174 18s. 3d° It therefore came under
the operation of the Act for the suppression of
the lesser monasteries, but it received the king’s
licence to continue,” though why it was selected
for exemption is not known.

Among the Suppression Papers !” there is a list
of the members of the community compiled in
1536 ; against the names of all, except that of the
prior, ‘religion’ is written in the margin. The
names are: Ralph Mauleverey, prior (age 47),
Robert Brewet (60), Robert Fuyster, claustral
vicar (60), Robert Halle (60), Ralph Smyth
(60), James Scooles (54), William Remyngton
procurator (42), Adam Rede, sacrist of the
church (32), John Rochester, James [ ]
‘de London’ (40), Nicholas Swyfte, priest, not
professed (27), Helizeus Furnes, novice (30),
and Brother William Gentil, conversus (34).

In the AMonasticon® another and shorter list is
given of pensions assigned g December 1539.
Besides the names of Mauleverey, Brewet, Hall,
Remyngton, and Rede, against whom pensions
are entered in the preceding list, two other names
are added, viz., William Browne and Thomas
Synderton, each of whom received £6 1335. 4d.,
the same as Brewet, Hall, Remyngton, and Rede.
Some of these can be traced in the pension
inquiry list in the sixth year of Edward VI."
Ralph Mauleverey, the late prior, died on
10 May 1552. William Remyngton and William
Browne received their pensions of £6 135. 4d.
Of Thomas Synderton the record is ‘ abest.’

Priors oF Hutt CHARTERHOUSE

Walter de Kele (first prior), 1378"
John Craven, occurs 1410 "8

8 Cal. of Papal Letters, vi, 81.

® Ibid. 162. © Valor Eccl. v, 126.

" Tickell, Hist. of the Town and County of Kingston-
upon-Hull, 162.

1! Suppression P. ii, 199.

18 Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. vi, 22. ‘The two lists no
doubt are those taken at the first suppression and at
the final surrender. There were only seven monks,
including the prior, in the later list, thus indicating
the change that had taken place in the personnel of the
house in the interval.

“ Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 23.

18 Foundation Chart. Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 21,
no. il.

6 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 19.

191

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Roger Billyngton, occurs 1412! (Roger Ril-
lington occurs 1415 **)

Richard, occurs 1423 9

John, occurs 1428.” John Wodrington, oc-
curs 143077

John Caunsfeld, occurs 1433,” 14397

Peter Burton alias Johnson, died 1459-60 4

Rauf, occurs 15147

Rauf Smyth, occurs 152978

Ralph Mauleverey (last prior),” died 1552

44. THE PRIORY OF MOUNT GRACE

The Carthusian Priory of Mount Grace, in
the parish of East Harlsey, was founded about
the year 1398 by Thomas Holand, Duke of
Surrey.’ The royal licence having been granted
to him by :Richard I], Thomas Holand com-
manded the monks to pray for the king and
queen and several members of the royal family,
as well as for himself and his heirs, and for John
Ingelby and Eleanor his wife, and many others.
With the assent of the prior of the Grande
Chartreuse he nominated the first prior and
dedicated the priory to the honour of the
Blessed Virgin and St. Nicholas; but the latter
part of the dedication was soon forgotten, and the
priory was known as the House of the Assump-
tion of the most Blessed Virgin in Mount Grace.
Richard II was a generous benefactor of the
priory ; in March 1399 he granted the monks
there a charter of liberties and franchises in
general terms, including the right to mine lead,
and in May of the same year, at the request of
the Duke of Surrey, he bestowed upon them
the alien priories of Hinckley in Leicestershire,
Carisbrooke in the Isle of Wight, and Wareham
in Dorset, and lands belonging to the alien
priory of Saint Mary of Lire, at Evreux, in
Normandy, to hold as long as the war between
England and France should continue. In spite
of the fact that the Duke of Surrey was slain
fighting against Henry IV, Mount Grace still
enjoyed royal favour ; Wareham Priory was lost
soon after Henry’s accession, and as £1,000 had
been paid for it, and its annual value was £245,
the king granted the monks {100 a year from
the Exchequer till they should receive lands of
that value, and a tun of the better red wine of
Gascony to be received at Hull every Martinmas.
Henry V confirmed the gift of Hinckley in 1412

7 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 81, no. 7.

“Ibid. no. 10, No doubt the same person.

® Tbid. no. 11. ” Ibid. no. 13. * Thid,

” Baildon, Mon. Netes, i, 100. 3 Ibid.

™ Reg. York Wills, ii, fol. 429.

* Tickell, Hist. of Town and County of Kingston-upon-
Hull, 143 n.

* Test. Eb:r. (Surt. Soc.), v, 27.

* Suppression P. ii, 199.

* Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 23.

' Vorks. Arch. Fourn. xviii, 253-69.

for the endowment and support of five monks,
chaplains of the house, to pray for the good estate
of himself and Thomas Beaufort, Earl of Dorset,
and in 1421 he gave the monks four alien
priories, Long Bennington, Minting and Hagh
(Hough-on-the-Hill) in Lincolnshire, and Field
Dalling in Norfolk, and the yearly grant of {100
was then redeemed.

The advowson of the priory passed to Edmund
Holand, brother of Thomas Duke of Surrey,
and his wife Lucy Countess of Kent was seised
of it on her death in 1421. In 1438, on the
death of Sir William Ingelby, the patronage
valued at 20s, a year was in his possession, but it
is not known how the advowson passed to the
Ingelby family. The Prior and convent of
Mount Grace petitioned Parliament in 1439 for
a confirmation of their title, stating that after the
founders’ death they dared not continue building
on account of the number of claimants to the
estate ; the required confirmation was made by
Henry VI in the following year.

In 1456 Sir James Strangways of Harlsey
Castle and Elizabeth his wife obtained licence
to grant the advowson of the church of Beighton,
in Derbyshire, to Mount Grace, and in 1462
the king granted in frankalmoign the manor of
Atherstone, in Warwickshire, part of the alien
priory of Great Ogbourne, in Wiltshire, for the
relief of the poor estate and expenses of persons
gathering there weekly. Another royal gift in
1471 was that of the manor in Yorkshire of
the alien priory of Begare in frankalmoign ;_ in
return three masses were to be said daily for the
king and for the souls of his family. In 1508
the Prior of Mount Grace accepted from the
Prior of Guisborough a lease for a term of fifty
years of the chapel of East Harlsey and manor
of Bordelby at a yearly rent of £8 ; if the rent
were in arrear the canons of Guisborough might
distrain and re-enter upon the land. The lessees
promised to keep a chaplain to celebrate divine
service, and if they repaired the quire this should
not operate to the prejudice of the lessors.?_ In
the will of Sir Thomas Strangways, 1522, men-
tion is made of a Lady Chapel at Mount Grace,
and directions are given for the priest who sang
masses there ; it may have been built shortly
before this date.

In 1534 some of the monks tried to avoid
taking the oath of royal supremacy, but they
were imprisoned and the prior finally surrendered
the monastery. Mount Grace was valued at
£382 55. 114d. gross and £323 25. 104d. net.
Of this sum £104 6s. 8d. was derived from
spiritualities in Lincolnshire, £164 from lands in
various counties, and the remainder from property
in Yorkshire. Expenditure on rents and salaries
amounted to £59 3s. 1d.* In December 1539

* Ibid. vii, 479-93.
*Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 84-5.

192

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

pensions amounting to £195 were allotted to the
brethren, the prior was given £60 with the house
and chapel called the Mount, eight of the priests
received {£7 each, and eighteen others smaller
payments.

Priors oF Mount Grace

Robert Tredwye or Tredewy, 1398

Edmund, occurs 1399 *

Nicholas Luff, occurs 1413,° 1415,° 14167

Robert Layton, occurs 14218

Thomas, occurs 1428 °

Thomas Lockington, occurs 1436, 1437,"
14392

Robert, occurs 1449,!% 1454 }4

Robert Leke, occurs 1469," 1473

Thomas, occurs 1475,’ 147638

Thomas, occurs 1497 '°

Henry Eccleston, occurs 1501,” 1506 %
John, occurs 1527-8," 1531-2 %8
William (?) Fletcher, occurs 1532-34
John Wilson, occurs 1537-8,” 1538 %

The seal of the house” used in 1520 isa
vesica, 2g in. by rgin., with a design of the
assumption of our Lady and the prior seated
under an arch in the base. An H above his
right shoulder perhaps refers to Prior Henry
Eccleston, The legend is :—

SIGILL’... ONIS : BEE : MARIE : IN MONTE GRE

Prior John Wilson’s seal,” a vesica, $ in. by
®in., shows him seated, wearing his mitre, and
blessing. The legend is :—

s’ PRIORIS DOMUS MONTIS GRACIE

HOUSE OF GRANDIMONTINES

45. THE PRIORY OF GROSMONT

About 1200 Joan Fossard, wife of Robert
de Torneham, gave to the prior and brothers of
the order of Grandmont a mansion in the forest
of Egton, and land which was to extend along
the River Esk for 7 ‘quarantans,’ and towards
the hill for 34 ‘quarantans,’ measured by a rod
of 20 ft. The brothers were to have 200 acres
of land round their house, with the woods, and
timber for building and other requirements, and
a toft at Sandsend. This charter was con-
firmed by her husband, who made an additional

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 28, no. i.

* Pat. 22 Ric. II, m. 5.

° Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 81, no. 7.

® As‘ Nicholas Love’; Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xviii, 71.

” As ‘Nicholas’ ; Baildon, Mon. Noves, i, 144.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 258.

* Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 81, no. 13 (probably
Thomas Lockington).

” Rievaulx Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), 351.

Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 144.

” Thid.

® Exch, K.R. Accts. bdle. 81, no. 20.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 144.

” Exch, K.R. Accts. bdle. 82, no. 15,

* Ingledew, Hist. of Northallerton, 264, 266.

® Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xviii, 71.

* Dep. Keeper’s Rep. xxxvi, App. 35.

” Rievaule Chartul, (Surt. Soc.), 357.

” Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 542.

* Ibid. no. 519.

* Ibid. no. 524. The membrane is dirty, but the
Christian name appears to be William.

® Thid. no. 533. ° Ibid. no. 547.

” Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3663, xlix, 18.

* Thid. 3665, xlix, 20.

® Tbid.

gift of land, and both charters were confirmed
by King John in the fifteenth year of his reign
(1213-14).

On 13 April 1228? Archbishop Gray con-
firmed to the prior and brothers of the order
of Grandmont the grant of the advowson of the
church of Lockington, made by Robert de Torne-
ham and Joan his wife, daughter of William
Fossard, and afterwards by Peter de Mauley and
Isabella his wife, with licence of the pope.

Peter de Mauley III, grandson of the fore-
named, in 1294 * made a new grant of the mill,
&c. of Egton, to Roger de Creswell, corrector
of the order of Grandmont in Eskdale, and the
brothers of the same place belonging to the
English nation, imposing an obligation that they
were to have two more chaplains who were to
celebrate daily in their church of St. Mary, for
his and his wife’s and other of his relations’ and
ancestors’ souls, and yearly to commemorate his
father and mother and Nicholaa his wife.

Burton ° states that the house was peopled
from an ‘abbey’ in Normandy, but does not

1 Dugdale, Mon. Ang. vi, 1025. There were
several Grandimontine priories (but no abbey) in
Normandy, but it was to the one abbey of the order
near Limoges (then only a priory) that the gift was
made, though Grosmont became a cell to a house otf
the order in Normandy.

The mother-house of Grandmont became an
abbey in 1318, and was annexed to the See of
Limoges by a bull dated 6 August 1772, when the
order was also suppressed ; Le Clergé de France, par
M. L’ Abbé Hugues du Tems, Paris 1775, iii, 319.

2 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1025, no. I.

3 Archbishop Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 22.

“Atkinson, Cleveland, Ancient and Modern, i, 202 n.

5 Mon. Ebor. 275.

3 193 25

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

give any authority for the statement, and
although possibly the first brethren came from
a Grandimontine priory in Normandy, it seems
that in 1294 the brothers were Englishmen,
and the fact that the head, who bore the
designation of ‘corrector,’* was Roger de
Cresswell (or of Cresswell) looks as if the
brothers had, perhaps, at that time come from
the cell at Craswall, in Herefordshire, which,
like that of Grosmont, was originally depen-
dent on one of the Grandimontine houses in
Normandy. In 1394-5 the Abbot of Grand-
mont obtained licence from Richard II to sell
the advowson and property of the priory of
Eskdale (as it was called) to John Hewit a/ias
Serjeant, and thereupon, says Burton,’ it seems
to have become a fprioratus indigena.

There is a good deal of obscurity attached to
the Grandimontine order, founded in 1076
by St. Stephen de Muret, and its rules and
customs. Their houses in Normandy and
Anjou were richly endowed by the English
kings. "The members of the order wore the
black cassock with a large scapular. St. Stephen
denied that his religious were monks, canons, or
hermits. Mabillon ranks them as Benedictines,
others among Augustinians, Hélyot denies both
assertions.®

The house at Grosmont seems, from the
manner in which the members are spoken of, to
have continued to belong to the order, and
though indigenous would probably be in con-
nexion with the abbey of Grandmont, much as
the Cistercians were with their head house
abroad. After the suppression of the two other
alien priories of the order at Adderbury and
Craswall, Grosmont would be the only Grandi-
montine house in England, and it is a matter for
regret that nothing is known as to its subsequent
history or internal affairs.

On 24 February 13879 Pope Urban VI
directed the Abbot of Whitby to make inquiry
concerning the action of the Prior and convent
of ‘Gramont’ in Eskdale of the order of
‘Grandemont’ in the diocese of York. The
pope had heard that they and their predecessors
had made alienations of their properties and
rights to the grave injury of the house. The
abbot was to see that any such alienations thus
unlawfully made were revoked.

In 1527 the clear annual value of the

* In 1229 ‘the prior and brethren of Grandimont
in Eskedale ’ are spoken of (Archbishop Gray’s Reg. 29).
In 1301 Archbishop Corbridge addressed a notice of
visitation ‘ magistro sive priori,’ the two latter words
being an interlineation (York Archiepis. Reg. Cor-
bridge, fol. 244).

Men. Ebor. 275.

* Christian and Ecclesiastical
Section), 190.

° B.M. Harl. Chart. 43, A. 47.

* Subs. R. bdle. 64, no. 303.

Rome (Monastic

priory of Grosmont was returned at £14.
According to the Valor Ecclesiasticus™ the gross
value was then only £14 2s. 2d., and the clear
annual value £12 2s. 8d.

At the time of the suppression the house was
described as ‘ Prioratus sive domus fratrum voca-
torum Boni Homines, beate Marie de Grande
Monte.’? Five names are given : Brothers James
Egton (aged 68), Lawrence Birde (50), William
Semer (36), Edmund Skelton (36), Robert
Holland (31).

There is a note, ‘Md. to remember Sir
William Knagges, sometyme a fryer in the seid
house of Gromont, to help hym to some yerely
pension or lyvynge for his cosyn his sake, att
Beacham.’ Mention is also made of Sir John
Banks, late prior eighteen years past.!3 The
entire charges upon the monastery are given
as alms bestowed for the founders four times a
year, viz. on Good Friday, Easter Even, the
vigil of Pentecost, and on Christmas Eve,
26s. 8d. a year; also given to the poor on the
four principal obits of the founders annually to
the value of 135. 4d."

At the inquiry as to the payment of
pensions in 1553,'° the commissioners stated,
as to Grosmont, that James Ableson, whose
pension was £4, ‘did not appear.’ Edmund
Skelton, pension 66s. 8d., and Robert Holland,
with the same pension, appeared. No such
name as ‘Ableson’ appears in the list of
members of the house, and the probable ex-
planation is that James Egton, whose name
heads the list of brothers in the first list, is the
same person as James Ableson named in the
second,!6

Priors oF GRoOsMONT

Roger, occurs 1287” (prior)

Roger de Cresswell, occurs 1294 (corrector)'®
William Whitby, occurs 1469”

John Banks, circa 1518”

James Egton, alias Ableson, occurs 15367

" Valor Eccl. v, 86.

” Suppression P. ii, 162. 8 Ibid 171.

“ These would be those imposed in 1294 by Peter
de Mauley III for his father and mother and his wife
Nicholaa, with no doubt his own obit, added after
his death.

** Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 24.

© Atkinson, Hist. of Cleveland, Ancient and Modern,
203 n. From the position of his name and his larger
pension, it is not improbable that he was prior at the
time of the surrender.

" Guisborough Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 154.

* Atkinson, Cleveland, Ancient and Modern, i, 202 n.
Possibly the two Rogers were the same person.

® Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 72. He is called prior.
Probably when the house became independent and
ceased to be a cell the corrector gave place to
a prior.

* Suppression P. ii, 162.

" Ibid. 171.

194

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

HOUSES

46. THE PRIORY OF BOLTON

The priory of Austin canons, afterwards moved
in 1151? to Bolton, was originally founded at
Embsay? in Skipton, by William Meschines and
Cecilia de Romeli his wife, lady of Skipton, in
1120.3 The foundation charter,‘ addressed to
Archbishop Thurstan, records that they had
given to Reynold, the prior, the church of
Holy Trinity of Skipton, with the chapel of
Carleton and the whole vill of ‘Emmesey,’ for a
church of regular canons.

By a separate charter,’ Cecilia de Romeli
granted to the church of St. Mary and St. Cuth-
bert of Embsay, and the canons there, the whole
vill of Kildwick, and her son-in-law William,
nephew of the king of Scotland, and Aeliz de
Romeli his wife,® confirmed to the church of
Embsay the church of All Saints of Broughton
in Craven.

In 1151,’ with the consent of Aeliz de Romeli,
then patroness,® the canons were moved to Bolton,
where she gave, with consent of her son William,
the capital manor of Bolton in exchange for
other lands. This exchange was confirmed by
Henry IL° A charter of Aeliz de Romeli,
confirming the gifts of William de Meschines
and her mother, gives full details of the boun-
daries of the lands given to the canons ‘ ecclesiz
tunc apud Embesiam, nunc apud Boelton com-
morantibus,’ !°

There was some connexion between Bolton
and the priory of Huntingdon which is not
very clear. The church of Skipton was part of
the foundation gift of William de Meschines
and Cecilia de Romeli to the canons when at
Embsay, but in a charter of confirmation by
Henry I to the priory of Huntingdon is included 4
‘ecclesiam S, Trinitatis de Scipeton cum omnibus
sibi pertinentibus sicut idem Willelmus [Meschin]
eam eis [canonicis de Huntingdon] dedit et
confirmavit.? There are two charters printed ?
relating to the ‘subjection’ of Bolton to Hunt-
ingdon, which, however, throw little light on the

? Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 201, 203, no. v.

? Ibid. 203, no. ii. 3 Tbid. no. i.
* Ibid. no. ii. 5 Ibid. no. iii.
6 Thid. no. iv. 7 Ibid. no. v.

*In 1 Edw. I (1272-3) the king was patron ;
Burton, Mon. Ebor. 121.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 204, no. vi.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor.115. The legend that the
priory was founded by Aeliz de Romeli after her son
had been drowned while hunting is clearly unsupported
by facts.

™ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 80, no. ii.

” Tid. 205, 206, no. xv, xvi.

OF AUSTIN CANONS

matter, especially as the church of Skipton
seems to have belonged without any real inter-
ruption to Bolton. Neither makes allusion to
the church of Skipton as the reason of the sub-
jection, or states what the Prior and canons of
Huntingdon meant by their claim; but the
second of the deeds, entitled ‘Carta de Absolu-
tione Prioris de Boelton de Subjectione Priori
de Huntendone,’’* addressed to G[eoffrey],
Archbishop of York 1191 to 1206, by R[oald],
Prior of Guisbrough, and W [ ], 4 Prior of
Marton, states that as the apostolic commis-
saries of Celestine III (1198 to 1216) they
had declared the Prior and canons of Bolton
free from all subjection to Huntingdon. How-
ever, in the Compotus Roll, Michaelmas 1324
to Michaelmas 1325,!° the canons of Bolton
paid £5 6s. 8d. pro pensione de Huntyngdon.
The whole affair is, unfortunately, obscure.

Dr. Whitaker, speaking of the establishment
as revealed from the accounts of the priory from
1290 to 1325,° says that it consisted of a prior,
who had lodgings with a hall and a chapel,
stables, &c., detached from the main building,
and that there were fifteen canons and two
conversiy'” besides the armigeri or gentlemen
dependent on the house, who had clothing,
board, and lodging, the Abert servientes within
and without, and the garciones or villeins. Of free
servants, intra curiam, there were about thirty,
such as the master carpenter, the master and
inferior cook, brewer, baker, &c., and Dr.
Whitaker’s estimate is that the establishment
consisted of more than 200 persons, but many
of them were engaged on distant manors and
granges.

On 2 December 1267 ® Archbishop Giffard
visited the priory of Bolton, when it was found
that Brother Hugh de Ebor’ possessed private
money, which it was said he had placed at deposit,
or handed to his brother at York, or his sister, a
nun of St. Clement’s. He was also charged
with incontinence, but that charge was not
proved. The whole convent had conspired by
oath against the predecessor of William de Dan-
field, the existing prior. John de Pontefracto,

18 Tbid. 206, no. xv.

™ No prior of Marton whose name began with W
is known at this period. Henry was prior in 1203
and 1237. ‘There would appear to be an error of
the copyist or a misprint.

% Burton, Mon. Ebor. 125.

In 1380-1 besides the prior there were thirteen
canons and five conversi.

8 Archbp. Giffara’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 145.

195

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the cellarer, was not fit for his office, and there
were many others much better suited for it.
Silence was not duly kept, and the sick not well
attended to, nor duly and humanely visited.
John de Ottele, a novice, did not willingly do
his duty according to rule. The cellarer and
sub-cellarer, whenever they could, absented
themselves from divine service, and did not take
their meals with the convent, but frequently,
after the refection of the convent, feasted them-
selves in the refectory. The prior appointed
custodians of the manors without consulting the
convent, and these it was believed rendered no
accounts. The accounts of the obedientiaries
were not rendered to the convent. It appeared
by the prior’s own admission and by a writing
which he delivered to the archbishop, attested by
his seal, that he had excommunicated brothers
William Hog and Hugh de Ebor’.

The monastery owed various creditors the
sum of £324 5s. 7d., but the debt was not one
of usury, as it was not owed to merchants but
to neighbours. It had been incurred by the
predecessors of the present prior. Nicholas de
Broc, sub-prior, was aged and feeble, and not
competent for the spiritual rule of the house, and
voluntarily resigned. The convent was directed
to elect another fit for the charge, but as the
canons were not at first unanimous, the arch-
bishop induced them to agree, and Ralph de Eston
was elected. The prior then confessed, certain
of the convent attesting it, that the statement
contained in the writing he had handed to the
archbishop, saying that he had excommunicated
William Hog and Hugh de Ebor’, was untrue.
The archbishop reserved the punishment to be
inflicted on the prior for the untruthful writing.
Brothers William Hog and Hugh de Ebor’ were
ordered to amend their ways, which had per-
turbed the convent, under threat of removal to
other houses. Possibly the prior was deposed, for
Richard de Bakhampton was prior in January
1274-5, when he resigned, and a yearly pension
of £20, with the use of certain dwellings at
Ryther, was assigned him in recognition of his
services.’® His successor was William Hog, the
previous disturber of the peace of the convent,
to whose election the royal assent was given on
18 March 1274-5. He must have come into
collision with the archbishop almost immediately,
for he was suspended, and on 29 September
1275 °! the archbishop issued a notice of an
intended visitation for 7 October® following,

* Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 264, 305, &c.

* Pat. 3 Edw. I, m. 6; Archbp. Giffards Reg.
(Surt. Soc.), 304.

" Ibid. 302.

™ Ibid. It may have been in connexion with these
disputes that an inquisition was held at Skipton on
28 Feb. 1274-5, when the jurors stated on their oath
that from the foundation of the priory the lords of
Albemarle in time of vacancy had only one man as

when a number of articles of inquiry as to the
prior were to be propounded, among them being
one as to whether he had continued to act as
prior after his suspension, The visitation was
duly held on the day appointed, and it was then
found by the confession of William Hog and
that of other of the canons that they had conspired
contrary to canon law against the archbishop.
The prior admitted that after his suspension he
had caused himself to be ministered to ‘in mensa
cum tuallia ut priori,’ and in the prior’s chamber
as before, also that he had gone to York to
secure the liberation of certain canons whom
the archbishop had in custody for correction, and
that he had invoked the lay authority, both that
of the Sheriff of York and of others, and had
caused the common seal to be set toa certain
proxy for this end, by reason of which the goods
of the monastery were squandered, It was
further found that, owing to his neglect, certain
properties had been lost because fealty had not
yet been made to the Countess of Albemarle.”
Moreover, after notice of the visitation had been
given he had commanded the canons in virtue
of their obedience to agree with one another in
what they said at the visitation. Further, he
had turned out of the priory the archbishop’s
servant who brought the letters thither. All
these offences proved, the archbishop then and
there pronounced sentence of deposition on the
prior. On 19 October all the canons, to the
number of thirteen, including the sub-prior,
whose names are given, recorded their votes in
favour of John de Lund, except the latter, who
voted for Thomas de Alna, and on 3 November
1275 the king signified to the archbishop his
assent to the election thus made.”

Five years later Archbishop Wickwane held a
visitation of Bolton, on 16 May 1280,” when he
issued a series of injunctions. Carols with locks,
and boxes (those of the obedientiaries alone ex-
cepted) were forbidden, and the locks of any,
wherever suspected, were to be opened by the
prior and three approved members of the house.
Money payments for clothes and shoes were not
to be made, but such were to be delivered to
each from the common tailor’s shop.

The entrances to and exits from the cloister
and church were to be kept from the incursions
of outsiders. If any attempted to go out with-

warden of the gates of the priory to defend the house
from injury, and that the canons without asking leave
from their patrons of Albemarle could freely clect a
prior, whom they presented to the said patrons, but
whereas the priory held of their patrons in chief
64 carucates of land, in the mean time they were
seized, though they had no other rights therefrom,
and when the prior was installed he paid the accus-
tomed relief for the said carucates. Yorks. Ing. i, 151.

= For lands, &c., at Harewood.

™ Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 312.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 244, 134.

196

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

out good reason he was to fast on bread and
water on the day following. Wanderings over
the moors and in the woods fotaliter interdici-
mus ab hac bora.

Each canon and conversus was to confess regu-
larly to the prior according to rule. No drink-
ing, &c., was allowed after compline, except in
cases of necessity, and at all times drinking and
food which tended to pleasure or lasciviousness,
with any unlawful and disordered actions, was
wholly proscribed. Gossiping, which had pre-
vailed in the absence of the prior, the archbishop
also forbade. Silence was to be observed accord-
ing to rule, and no letter received or sent by any-
one without leave of the president. Faults were
to be proclaimed in love and not vindictively,
and not more than was necessary was to be said.
Worn-out clothes were to be given to the poor,
and no one was to be admitted canon or conver-
sus without the archbishop having first approved
of his behaviour. No boarder was to be taken
without the archbishop’s express permission.

Certain serious defects in church, chapter-
house, and other buildings, were to be speedily
repaired.

Corrections in chapter were to be made with-
out favour, with good zeal, and the sweetness of
charity. All were to obey the prior, and the prior
was to direct, and deal with all in true affection.

A visitation was held by Archbishop Romanus
on 15 July 1286,”° when John de Lund resigned
and was specially commended for his services, an
annual pension and provision being made for
him. The archbishop, however, found the
priory so heavily in debt that it could not con-
veniently support its members. It would seem
that certain of the goods had been assigned to
individual members. This allocation he revoked,
in order to relieve the depression from which the
house was suffering, but it is not clearly stated
what it was that had been done and which he
annulled. His injunctions, which are very brief,
find no other fault with the condition of the
monastery. On 30 May 1291” the arch-
bishop wrote to the prior and convent to re-
admit William de Insula, an apostate canon
of the house, and two years later (18 April
1293),"% as the canons were suffering from
losses owing to floods and mortality of their
cattle so that they were unable to maintain their
customary hospitality, he allowed them to con-
solidate the chapelry of Carlton in Craven with
their church of Skipton. On 25 October
1320 Archbishop Melton wrote to the Prior
and convent of Worksop that the monastery of
Bolton, of their order, had been so wasted by
the invasion of the Scots, who on various occa-
sions had destroyed its live stock and set fire to
its property, that it could no longer support its

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 27.
” Thid. fol. 39. * Tbid. fol. 414.
* Ibid. Melton, fol. 1414.

college of canons, or maintain due hospitality;
and he therefore sent William de Rotherham,
one of the canons, to reside with them for a
time, at an annual charge of 5 marks payable
by Bolton. In like manner Thomas de Menyng-
ham was sent to Nostell, Thomas de Coppelay
(soon afterwards prior) to Thurgarton, Laurence
de Wath to Shelford, Robert de Ripon to
Guisborough, Symon (or Richard) de Ottelay
to Drax, John de Selby to Warter, and Stephen
de Thirneholm to Kirkham. How long the
dispersion lasted is not exactly known, but the
house seems to have soon recovered, and ac-
cording to the account already alluded to
of its revenues and reprises from Michaelmas
1324 to Michaelmas 1325, the income was
£444 175. 44d., whereas in 1535 the revenues
were only £302 9s. 3d., in the whole, and but
£212 35. 4d. clear.

In 1367* Archbishop Thoresby confirmed
a chantry founded in the conventual church by
Thomas de Bradeley and John de Otteley. It
was to be served by a secular chaplain, or fail-
ing a secular, by a regular, who was to do service
for the souls of Thomas de Ottirburn and Maud
his wife, and those of John de Bradeley and Mary
his wife.

On 14 November 1471 * Archbishop George
Nevill confirmed the election of Christopher
Lofthouse as prior, in succession to William
Man’, resigned, when the following provision
was made for the latter. He was to receive
£7 6s. 8d. yearly in money, and was assigned
a chamber for his habitation at the west end of
the common hall of the priory, with a garden
and the easements belonging to it, sufficient fuel
to burn in his chamber, and fourteen loaves of
white bread called /ez miches, of like weight to
those which each of the canons was wont to
receive, and fourteen /agenas of the better ale, and
flesh, fish, and other eatables, to the amount which
two canons were wont to receive. Besides this,
William Man’ was, during his life, to have a
servant to attend him, who every week was to
be supplied with seven loaves called /e /everey
loves, half of them to be of white bread, and the
other half de mediocri sive de medio pane, also
seven loaves deterioris panis of the same weight

0 ¢Pro frater Symone de Otteley vel Ricardo de
Otteley’ (Ibid. Melton, fol. 1414, &c.). In 1378-9
there were nineteen members of the house including
the prior and sub-prior (Subs. R. [P.R.O.], bdle. 63,
no. 10), and in 1380-1 the prior, thirteen canons, and
five conversi (Ibid. no. 12). On 27 Feb. 1397 the
chapter of York (sed. vac.) summoned the prior and
convent to appear before certain commissioners to
give account of the reputed disregard of the rules
which prevailed at Bolton, and on 13 Apr. following ©
they commissioned Richard de Skypse, vicar of
Slaidburn, to correct the abuses revealed at the ‘in-
quisition,’ but no particulars are given.

31 York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 1464.

3? Ibid. G. Nevill, fol. 139, &c.

197

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

as the loaves which the chief forester of the
priory was accustomed to receive, and meat, fish,
and other food such as thechief forester had, and
two Jagenas of the better ale, and two deterioris
cervisie.

In 14828 Archbishop Rotherham issued a
set of injunctions; the majority are in general
terms, and refer to the due observances of the
canonical life. The frequent access to and gos-
siping at the priory of women is forbidden, as
grave scandal had arisen from it in regard to the
prior and some of the canons. Neither the
prior nor canons were to hold private confabula-
tions with any suspected women, either in the
church or other secret places, within or outside
the priory, by which evil report might arise.
The priory was heavily in debt, and the prior
and convent were enjoined to abstain from
burdensome expenses, as far as possible, for the
honour of the house, so that it might soon be
freed from debt. Owing to its debts they were
forbidden to grant pensions, fees, or annual rents
to any persons whatsoever under the common
seal or otherwise, or to sell corrodies, or liveries,
or to make grants or alienations of their posses-
sions, or of their woods, or to grant long leases of
their manors, without archiepiscopal licence.

All the moneys, accruing from whatever
source, were to be delivered to the prior, and
be in his custody, and at his disposal, and a
trustworthy and discreet canon was to be deputed
to keep an indentured roll, in which all the
receipts were to be entered. No one was to
keep a useless servant, who was a burden to the
house, or one super incontinencie victo graviter
diffamatus.

An oath of Gilbert Marsden, the prior, follows
the injunctions, by which he promised that he
would not waste or dissipate the goods of the
priory, and would fulfil all the injunctions of the
archbishop, and if he failed in this, then he
undertook to resign his office, and forgo all
claim to a pension. It may be surmised that
all did not proceed satisfactorily,** for the next
year Gilbert Marsden resigned, and on 10 July
Archbishop Rotherham confirmed the election
of Christopher Wood in his place. Whether
Prior Marsden resigned under compulsion, or
voluntarily, is not clear, but a dispute arose
between the prior and convent on the one part,
and the two retired priors, Christopher Loft-
house and Gilbert Marsden, on the other, which
was settled on 29 October 1483 * by William
Poteman, the archbishop’s vicar-general. Chris-
topher Lofthouse was to be appointed to the
vicarage of Long Preston and have a chaplain
with cure of souls in charge of the parish for
him, who was to occupy the vicarage house and
have glebe to the value of 535. 4d. annually,
Lofthouse receiving a pension of 21 marks

8 York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 204.
* Ibid. fol. 37. * Tbid. fol. 453.

yearly, and all the profits of the church of Hare-
wood, till 2 February next ensuinz. Gilbert
Marsden was to have an annual pension of
25 marks and arrears of 535. 4d., and, it is oddly
added, the use of a certain silver bowl as long
as he wished ; but he was to redeem that bowl
with another he had pledged within a year, or
pay the prior and convent their value, and as
long as he lived, unless the archbishop with
consent of the prior and convent directed other-
wise, was to urge no other claim against the
prior and convent.

In 1528 *° Prior Richard and the convent of
Bolton granted to William Wall the office of
porter, assigning him certain wages and livery of
food. ‘The sayd Wylliam shall loke upon all
strangears and take and brynge thame to oy‘
offycers w' in, for y* well and y° worshyp of y*
sayd hows of Bolton. Also y* he or hys servaunt
shall loke upon y® gest beddes as hays beyn accus-
tomyd, and to loke upon all meyn persons comyng
to y° sayd hows, and se y' thay be logyd accord-
yng to y' degre. And also y* sayd Wylliam
shall se y* all pore folkes resortyng to y* sayd
hows for Almes shalbe servyd as custome hays
beyn. And also yt ys covenantyd and grantyd
betwyx y° sayd parteys, yt y® sayd Wylliam shall
not have w' in y®° demayns of y° sayd hows
nother cow nor hors wt owt a specyall lycence,
and yt he shall not kepe in y® yate hows nother
hys wyff, ne no other woman, except he be
agyd or dyseasyd and may not help himselff.”
He was further to suffer no misrule, or allow the
presence of any suspected person, under pain of
forfeiting his appointment. William Wall was
living at the Dissolution, when this appointment
was commuted at 535. 4d. annually.

A lease made in 1537 deals with property
at Embsay, and described the boundaries of the
land there ‘by meres or boundes from oon cer-
teyn stone lying on Byrkbanke, wherupon ther
is wrought bya mason oon Anlett of that oon
syde and a Toone and a bolte® on that other
syde, and so frome that stone to other stones so
marked.’

The will of Richard Moone, the last prior, was
proved at York 28 July 1541.°° He bequeathed
his body to be buried in the chancel of the
church of Catton (in the East Riding, near Stam-
ford Bridge). The will proceeds: ‘ Igive and
bequeath xx marc at Bolton, and in the parish-
inge wher I was borne to power people. Itm.
my chales to Preston* churche wher I was
borne, to serve the parishe with. Itm. my vest-
ment, silver crewettes, and all other thinges
belonginge to my altare, to serve theme that

* Conventual Leases, Yorks (P.R.O.), no. 29.
*“Tbid. no. 16.

* An interesting description of a rebus of the name
Bolton,

* York Reg. of Wills, xi, fol. 553.
“Long Preston Church in Craven.

198

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

commes to her [hear] service at Bolton. Item
to the repayringe of the saide churche of Bolton
vj xiijs viije?

Prior Moone and fourteen canons surrendered
the house on 29 January 1540. A yearly pen-
sion of £40 was assigned to the prior, and sums
varying from £6 135. 4d. to £4 were granted
to the canons.

Priors OF BoLTron

Reynold, 1120 *

John, occurs 1212,"7 1219 *

Robert, occurs 1222,*4 1227 *

Thomas, occurs 1233 *®

Adam, occurs 1255 *”

Henry, occurs 1263 *

William de Danfield, occurs 1267,*° 1271 ©

Richard de Bakhampton, confirmed 1270,°!
resigned 1274-5 ”

William Hog, confirmed 1275," deprived
1275

John de Lund, or Landa, confirmed 1275,”
occurs 1327,°° resigned 1330 7

Thomas de Coppeley, died 1340 ™

Robert de Harton, confirmed 1340,*° died
1369”

Robert de Ottelay, confirmed 1369," occurs
1385

Robert de Grene, occurs 1397, 1398 “4

John Farnhill, occurs 1413,” resigned 1416 ®

Robert Catton, succeeded 1416, occurs
1423,° died 1430

John Farnhill (again) 1430”

Lawrence, occurs 1439 7

Thomas Boston, occurs 1448-9,” resigned
14567

“ First prior (at Embsay) ; Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi,
203, no. li.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 12.

“ Feet of F. file 14, no. §9 (Hil. 3 Hen. III).

“ Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 12.

“ Feet of F. file 18, no. 13 (Mich. 11 Hen. III);
19, no. go.

“Ibid. file 26, no. 13 (Trin. 17 Hen. III).

“Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 12. * Tbid.

5 Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 32. Dugdale,

Mon. Angi. vi, 202, gives him the afas of Burlington.
Ibid. 53 Pat. 3 Edw. I,m. 6.
4 Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 307.
*® Ibid. 312. 58 Add. Chart. 16706.
"Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 202.
* York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 50.
® Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 155.
* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 12.
% Cal. Papal Letters, v, 59.
* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 202.
* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 12.
* York Archiepis. Reg. Bowett, fol. 354.
® Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 12.
® York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 356.
"Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 12.
” Ibid. (from Knaresborough Ct. R.).
* York Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 8.

° Tbid.
% Tbid.

8’ Tbid.
” Ibid.

William Man’, elected 1456,” resigned 1471 7

Christopher Lofthouse, confirmed 1471 7

Gilbert Wilson, occurs 147777

Gilbert Marsden, occurs 1482,’ resigned
14837

Christopher Wood, 1483," resigned 1495 ®

Thomas Ottelay, 1495,” resigned 1513 ®

Richard Moone, 1513,8* last prior ®°

_ The seal * of Bolton Priory bore a representa-
tion of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Child.

Legend :-—

SIGILLUM SANCTE MARIE DE BOLTON

47. THE PRIORY OF BRIDLINGTON

The great Augustinian priory of Bridlington
was founded by Walter de Gant in the reign of
HenryI.1 The priory received gifts from a large
number of donors, and soon became one of the
richest religious foundations in the county. Bur-
ton has given a list of its possessions,” occupying
no less than thirty-four folio pages of his work.
The founder himself, besides 13 carucates, &c.,
at Bridlington, gave five churches, and the
moiety of another, and at the Dissolution the
priory possessed sixteen churches besides several
chapelries. In addition to its temporalities King
Stephen gave ‘the port and harbour of Bridling-
ton, with all kinds of wreck of the sea which
shall in future happen on or issue in all places
within the Dykes called Earl Dyke, and Flayn-
burg Dyke.’ ®

Ralph son of Ralph de Nevill granted the
canons stone from the quarry of Filey for build-
ing their monastery and its offices, with access for
fetching the stone over his land.*

The founder’s gift of the church of Grinton
in Swaledale led to a strange complaint on the
part of the prior and convent to the pope. The
Archdeacon of Richmond had, they said, travelled
on his visitation with a retinue of ninety-seven
horses, twenty-one dogs, and three hawks, and

7 Ibid.
tracted. ]

7 Tbid. G. Nevill, fol. 139.

7 Reg. Corpus Christi Guild, York, 101.

78 York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 204.

Tbid. 37. ® Tbid. 8 Tbid. 88. * Tbid.

83 Ibid. Bainbridge, fol. 404. * Tbid.

8 Surrendered the house 29 Jan. 1540-1 ; Dugdale,
Mon. Angi. vi, 202.

86 Jbid. vi, 203.

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 234. Among the wit-
nesses to the Foundation Charter was Archbishop
Thurstan. Pope Calixtus II (1119-24) confirmed to
Guicheman, the first prior, all the grants made by the
founder ; Prickett, Priory C4. of Bridlington, 15.

7 Burton, Mon. Ebor. 213-46.

3 Prickett, Priory Ch. of Bridlington, 20.

“Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 288, no. xiv.

[The name is written Man’ as if con-
5 Tbid. fol. 84.

199

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

in a bricf hour (sora brevi) had consumed more
than would have maintained their house for a
considerable period. ‘This led to a mandate from
Innocent III (1198-1216), protecting the canons
from undue exactions from archbishops, bishops,
archdeacons, and their officers, and restricting the
equipages of those persons to what the eleventh
Lateran Council had permitted, which only
allowed an archdeacon to travel with seven horses
on such occasions.°

On 30 January 1279-808 Archbishop Wick-
wane held a visitation of Bridlington and issued
a number of injunctions. First he ordered that
the monastic alms were not to be put to any
illicit uses, but were to be duly distributed. No
one, without reasonable cause, was to go into the
infirmary, or pretend that he was not able to
attend the service of God. ‘The prior was not
to give leave to any brother to wander about the
country, or to visit friends or relations, without
need ; and in giving leave to go out, the prior was
to be careful that scandal was not brought on the
monastery. Suspected boxes with locks were
forbidden.” The prior was to see to the repair
of the roof of the dormitory without delay. No
canon was to dwell alone in any manor, or else-
where, particularly not at Blouberhous,® to the
injury of his reputation. Under pain of ana-
thema, any persons who were professed, and had
appropriated anything, were to restore it at once
to the prior for the common use of the house. The
prior was to direct his convent with zeal, and to
follow the counsel of the elders, and not that of
the young members of the house, and was not to
be an acceptor of persons. A worthy and in-
dustrious sub-prior was to be appointed (erdinari) *
without delay. The canons and conversi were
not to keep the sporting dogs or horses of other
persons. Odo, the brother of Thomas de Aune-
wycke, was not to remain longer in the ofhce of
granctarius, unless it pleased the convent other-
wise. The prior was to see that the office of
sacrist was more diligently fulfilled than hitherto,
and that useless and mean persons, who con-
sumed the goods of the monastery, were ex-
pelled,

‘Burton, Afer. Ebcr. 212. From King John, in
1200, the prior and canons obtained licence for a
yearly fair of two days on the eve and festival of the
Assumption (14 and 15 Aug.), as well as a weekly
market in Bridlington ; Prickett, Priory Ch. of Brid-
ington, 22.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 1174. The
heading is ccrrecciones facte apud Bridelingtone, from
which it may be inferred that these injunctions were
to correct abuses revealed at the visitation, and not
cautions only for the better rule of the house.

" The objection was that things might be given to
individual canons, and be irregularly retained by them
as private property.

* i.e. Blubberhouses, in the parish of Fewston.

* From the use of the word crdinari it seems as if
the intention was to create a new office.

Following on this the archbishop, on 1 March
1279-80," sent Reynold de Thyrnum, one of
the canons, to Nostell, to undergo the due
rigour of regular discipline ; he was not to be
permitted, either in the prior’s chamber, or else-
where in private places, as had been his wont, to
lead an easy life, unless sickness or other neces-
sity existed.

Six months later (1 September 1280)" Arch-
bishop Wickwane wrote to the prior and convent
that having regard to the slender state of their
monastery, and the restricted space of their dor-
mitory, &c., they were to take no one as canon
or conversus before the next visitation, without
his special licence. No corrodies, meanwhile,
were to be granted, and all their canons living
outside in manors were to be immediately recalled
unless their fidelity, and also their absence, was
unanimously approved by all. In April 1286”
Archbishop Romanus visited Bridlington, and
formulated the following (among other) in-
junctions. The cloister, in which the regular
life flourished, was to be well kept from the going
to and fro of secular persons, and no mean, but
worthy persons only, were to take their food
there, according to the judgement of the superior.
The sick were to be better tended. Nuns, or
secular women, were not to be received within
the precincts of the monastery, great ladies alone
excepted, who could not be refused without grave
inconvenience. The almoner was to be more
careful. No one was to receive presents with-
out the leave of the president. The old clothes
of the canons were to be given to the poor, and
no liveries, corrodies, or annual pensions were to
be sold without the archbishop’s special leave.
Drinking after compline was forbidden. The
superfluous and suspected exits towards the new
cloister of the vivarium were to be speedily closed.
Useless servants of the house (and especially the
useless servants in the infirmary and _hostelry)
were to be removed. Jews were not to be
admitted to the hospice of the monastery.
This the archbishop deemed to be senseless and
absurd (absonum et absurdum). "The convent was
not to eat meat on Wednesdays, as that was
inhonestum. A reader (lector) was to be provided
for the canons, who would instruct and teach
them in the Sacred Page.

Buffoons were to be repelled, who raised
laughter to the injury of silence. Serfs were not
to have manumission, nor were lands to be sold
without the archbishop’s knowledge.

No canon or conversus was to have horses, ora
horse in turn, without the expressed assignment
of the prior. No woman was to approach the
place of the canons in the quire ; and the minor
or young canons were to exhibit reverence and
obedience to the older ones. The prior was to
keep convent, be present at chapters, and sleep in

0 York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 8.
" Thid. fol. 1198. ™ Tbid. Romanus, fol. 61.

200

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

the dormitory. The prior and sub-prior were to
punish faults equitably in chapter, and the sub-
prior was to guard the cloister more vigilantly.
John de Swaledale, who occupied the office of
sacrist against the will of the prior and convent,
was tobe removed. Geoffrey ‘ Niger’ of Kilham
and Walter de Spaunton were forbidden to go out
of the cloister for a year, and Walter, whose most
recent demerits had notoriously accumulated, was
to be kept alone in safe custody, and on one day
each week was to fast on bread and water, till
the archbishop should order differently. Geoffrey
‘Rubeus’ of Kilham and Peter de Herrington
were to be kept within the precincts of the
monastery for half a year, Adam de Wyhton for
a quarter of a year, and Reginald de Thyrnum
fortwo months, And by ‘cloister’ the arch-
bishop stated that he understood the four inside
angles by which the dormitory, chapter-house, and
refectory were contained.

On 27 April 12918 the archbishop directed
the sub-priors of Kirkham and Warter to proceed
to Bridlington and make inquiry concerning a
certain Simon, a novice, whose disregard of the
duties of his profession as regarded divine ser-
vice, &c., had caused murmurs to arise among
the canons.

On 8 October 1295 the archbishop wrote to
the prior and convent in respect of Brother J. de
Ockham, one of the canons, whom they had sus-
pected of suffering from leprosy, in consequence
of which they had foolishly suspended him from
ministering at the high altar or celebrating the
Lady mass, not considering how full of peril such
a censure was, if not made on reasonable grounds.
The archbishop had had the canon carefully
examined by doctors, who found that he was
wholly free from the disease, and he enjoined
the convent to admit him ‘ad omne genus com-
munionis fraterne, illo non obstante.’

On 25 February 1301-2 Archbishop Cor-
bridge sent Peter de Melbourne, who had
resigned the priory of St. Oswald’s Gloucester,
to Bridlington for a time.

In 13091° Archbishop Greenfield wrote re-
specting Canon Simon le Constable, who, priding
himself on his noble birth, refused to conform
to the rule, and as a corrupter of morals was
to be transferred to Guisborough, whither the
prior was ordered to send him, with a decent
equipage, necessary habit, and honest company.
In another letter the Prior of Guisborough was
ordered to receive him ; the latter exhibited some
reluctance in the matter, which is perhaps ex-
plained by the nature of Simon le Constable’s
offence, indicated by the terms of his penance.
A rather long correspondence took place in

8 York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 644.
* Thid. fol. 684.

® Tbid. Corbridge, fol. 35.

* Ibid. Greenfield, i, fol. 99.

regard to the case.” The penance imposed on
Simon le Constable, while at Guisborough, was
briefly as follows: '® he was not to minister in
any office at the altar, and was to abstain from
receiving Holy Communion. Every day, secretly
prostrating himself before one of the altars, he
was to say the seven penitential psalms and litany,
with grief and lamentation, and continual smiting
of his breast, in expiation of his heinous sins.
Every day from the prior, sub-prior, or president
he was to receive, in the spirit of humility, pri-
vately, a discipline. In addition he was to read
daily attentively, by himself, in secret, the eigh-
teenth and nineteenth chapters of Genesis and
the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.
From these portions of the Bible which he had to
read it is manifest what his sin had been.

On 20 February 1313° Archbishop Green-
field promulgated a general sentence against all
those who adored a certain image of the Blessed
Virgin in the monastery of Bridlington.

On Saturday after the feast of St. John of
Beverley 1314 Archbishop Greenfield held a
visitation of Bridlington, and issued the following
injunctions. The services of our Lady, and
those for the departed, and others said without
music, were to be distinctly and clearly recited ;
there was to be no gabbling of the verses of the
psalms, one side beginning before the other had
finished. None were to make any innovations in
the habit worn within or without the house. Alms
were to be duly collected by the almoner, and
given to the poor incharity, &c. The prior was
to keep convent in church, cloister, refectory,
and dormitory, unless looking after notable guests,
or otherwise lawfully hindered. The prior and
sub-prior were not to license claustral canons
to wander about the country. In recreations
the prior was to be circumspect, and grant the
greater favour to those whom he saw most to need
it. He was to take counsel with his canons in
difficult matters, and was not to permit canons to
dwell, as members of the household, with secular
persons without the archbishop’s special licence.

The archbishop, as usual, found the house
heavily in debt, and he forbade the sale of pen-
sions, liveries, or corrodies, and exhorted all to
use such economy that their house might speedily
recover itself. ‘The archbishop, while visiting
the house on 13 May 1314,” admonished Gerard,
the prior, that within a year he should cause a

7 All the letters and documents are printed in full
in the Guisborough Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), 11, 379-85.

18 York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, i, fol. 112.

Ibid. ii, fol. 11g. At a later period Thomas
Covell, vicar of Togcliffe, by will dated 1463 left to
the high altar of the monastery of Bridlington 84¢.,
“item offerendos ad ymaginem Beate Marie in eadem
ecclesia vocatam Melrose’ 12¢., and also a bequest to
the image of St. Eloy in the same church. York Reg-
of Wills, ii, fol. 483.

0 Ibid. fol. 1214. | Tbid. fol. 120.

3 201 26

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

competent chamber, with a chimney and other
necessaries, to be made for the prior, and for the
reception of the archbishop when visiting the
priory, under a penalty of £20.

Archbishop Melton held a visitation of Brid-
lington on 6 April 1318,” and issued a series of
general injunctions. One item, that the canons
were to keep no superfluous dogs or horses, 1s
apparently the only thing out of the common.
The house was then heavily in debt, as before,
and the same restrictions and exhortations were
made. Rather later in the year one of the canons,
Richard de Kirkeby, was sent to Bolton for cor-
rection.”

In 1321 there was another visitation, when
a short and unimportant series of injunctions was
issued ; but it must have been a time of some in-
ternal disorder or mismanagement, for the sub-
prior and cellarer were removed from office, the
prior resigned somewhat later, and Richard de
. Kirkeby was again sent away, this time to Shel-
ford, but what was the cause of all the trouble
does not appear. There is, however, an unusual
and perhaps significant order, addressed to the
sub-prior and convent on 3 September,” that as
Peter de Wynthorp had resigned the office of prior
and his resignation had been accepted by the arch-
bishop, his seal of office ought no longer to remain
unbroken in his possession, and that having sum-
moned him to chapter they were to receive the
seal from him, and in the presence of the whole
convent break it, and reduce it to a mass (ef in
massam redigatis).

On 15 July 1324 °° Archbishop Melton held
another visitation of Bridlington, when he directed
that the sub-cellarer was to render weekly
accounts of the daily expenses, and of all kinds of
food. All were to abstain from inviting
strangers, and to refrain from all superfluous
expenses; whatever was left of the food in the
refectory or other places was to be given as alms
to the needy poor.

On 3 January 1362-3” Archbishop Thoresby
issued a commission to confirm the election of a
prior who was destined, not long after his death,
to receive formal canonization. John de Thweng
belonged to an old Yorkshire family which de-
rived its name from Thwing, a small parish in
the East Riding. The Thwengs also owned
Kilton and Kirkleatham in Cleveland, and another
member of the family rendered himself conspi-
cuous,** as patron of the church of Kirkleatham,
in opposing the papal encroachment on the rights
of patrons. Mlembers of the family were bene-
factors to the priory of Guisborough, and a

7) York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 273.

* Ibid. fol. 228. * Ibid. fol. 2858.

*5 Ibid. fol. 285. * Tbid. fol. 2964.

* Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 2074.

* Sir Robert de Thweng, temp. Henry III; see
Burton, Aon. Ebsr. 44, and elsewhere, as to him and
the action he took.

shield bearing their arms (three popinjays) is
still to be seen carved on the splay of the noble
east window of the priory church there.

John de Thweng was noted for his sincere
piety and genuine goodness of life. He ruled
the priory with zealous care for many years, and
soon after his death stories began to be told of
miracles he had wrought in his lifetime, and of
others which had taken place at his tomb.
Eventually Archbishop Alexander Nevill ® issued
a commission to inquire into the matter, which
reported to the pope, and on 24 September
1401 ° Pope Boniface IX issued a decree
formally canonizing the late Prior of Bridlington,
who was henceforth known as St. John of
Bridlington. In the decree the pope declared
that the Blessed John, sometime prior of the
Augustinian priory of Bridlington, although
born of honourable parents,*! had from his tender
years frequented churches. Before he had com-
pleted his fourteenth year he had made his
profession as a canon of Bridlington. After
being promoted to holy orders he filled divers
offices, and was elected prior, showing an example
of a severe and holy life. The pope mentions
some miracles worked by him before and after
his death, viz., the multiplication of corn in the
priory barn, his walking on the sea to rescue
certain men in a rowing-boat caught in a storm,
his raising to life five persons. He had healed a
woman ill of the plague, a cousin of one of the
canons, also a halt and impotent man, as well
as others possessed with devils, and others deaf
and dumb. For other of his miracles the pope
referred the faithful to the authentic books in
which they were set forth, and for a proof of
them to the votive offerings at the tomb and
the pictures (ymagines) placed there. Further
the pope ordained 10 October, the day of his
death, as his feast day, and for his office the
office of a confessor, not a bishop. To all peni-
tents who on the saint’s feast day visited his
sepulchre the pope granted relaxation of seven
years and seven guadraginae of enjoined penance.

The body of the saint was removed to a
shrine at the back of the high altar, which
became a place of pilgrimage. In this case,
without accepting the marvels recorded in the
papal decree, Bridlington’s sainted prior was
much more worthy of the distinction than others
elsewhere. Possibly because of the glory which
St. John’s life shed on the house of which he
had but recently been prior, Pope Alexander V®
on 1§ October 1409 granted that Prior Thomas
and his successors should wear the mitre, ring,
and other pontifical insignia in the priory and

” York Archiepis. Reg. Alex. Nevill, fol. 99.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 458.

31 The inference intended would seem to be that,
although born to a life of ease and comfort, he had
devoted it to religion.

** Cal. of Papal Letters, vi, 161.

202

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

in subject places and churches belonging to
it; they could also give solemn benediction after
mass, vespers, and matins, provided that no bishop
or papal legate were present.

On 12 July 1448 * Henry VI granted to the
prior and convent, besides many franchises and
immunities, that they should have three fairs

‘ yearly, viz., on the vigils, feasts, and morrows
of the Nativity of the B.V.M. (8 September),
the Deposition of St. John late prior of
‘Brydelington,’ and the Translation of the same
St. John. Seven years later (20 July 1452) #4
the prior and convent agreed that in return for
exemptions made by Letters Patent, releasing
them from contribution of tenths, aids, subsidies,
&c., they would, in every mass sung at the high
altar and also in all masses said by any of the
canons, pray for the good and prosperous estate
of the king and of Queen Margaret, with the
collect ‘Deus in cujus manu corda sunt Regum,.’
in which special mention was to be made by
name of the king and queen, while living, and
when they had departed this life they would sing
a mass of Requiem.

On 18 July 1444 the prior and canons
entered into an agreement with the inhabitants
of Bempton in the parish of Bridlington. The
inhabitants had of old, with licence of the prior
and convent, built a chapel in Bempton in
honour of St. Michael, and at their own charges
had undertaken to have it and the cemetery
consecrated, in order to receive the sacraments
and be buried there. ‘They further undertook
to keep the chapel in repair. It was arranged
that their chaplain was to have a penny at the
purification of women, and at the burial of the
dead, and in singulis missis suis a penny, commonly
called hevedmesse peny, with other commodities
accustomed before the consecration of the chapel.
The prior and convent were to find bread and
wine, and 2lb. of wax to be made into four
tapers, two at Michaelmas, and two at Easter.
This agreement is interesting as showing the
position of inhabitants in a parish served by a
monastery.*6

At a visitation held by Archbishop Kemp in
1444,°7 Robert Warde, the prior, being no
longer able to perform the duties of his office,
resigned, and a pension was assigned him during
the remainder of his life. He was to have,
inter alia, the habitation called the chamber of
John Gisburn, formerly prior, with its garden
and easements. Each day he was to receive
two ‘honest’ services of flesh or fish, or other
meats from the kitchen, such in quantity as that

33 Chart. R. 21-4 Hen. VI, no. 5.

* Ibid. 29-39 Hen. VI, no. 26.

35 York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 448.

%6'The case of Bempton may be compared with
that of Horsehouse Chapel in Coverham, alluded to
in the account of that house.

% York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 197.

served to two canons, also a service called the
‘Yomanmesse’ for himself, or those who minis-
tered to him; and from the cellar, daily, two
white loaves of the greater weight and one
white loaf of the lesser weight, with a loaf called
the ‘ yomanlofe.’ At every fone/lacio in the monas-
tery he was to have (s/ané) flagons of conventual
ale from the brewery, and daily from the cellar
two flagons of the same, and unam quartam of
wine except on Wednesdays and the vigils pre-
ceding festivals of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
On the days when wine was customarily served to
the brethren he was to be content with the same
allowance as that given to the others. In addi-
tion he was to have a yearly allowance of 1005.

The church of St. Mary of Scarborough,
which had originally been granted to the abbey
of Citeaux, was granted (on the seizure of the
properties of alien houses) to Bridlington.*® By
a charter addressed to Peter Ellard *® (prior
1462-72) Edward IV confirmed this grant of
his predecessors out of veneration for St. John
of Bridlington. ‘Thus it has come about that
Scarborough although in the North Riding is
within the archdeaconry of the East Riding.

There is a letter, dated 13 October 1453,*°
from Archbishop William Booth, addressed to
Robert, the prior, and canons of Bridlington
acknowledging the receipt of a certain /be/lum
which they had sent to him, de regularibus obser-
vanciis of the monastery. The /:be//um contained
forty folios, and the archbishop approved it,
with the exception of the chapter as to the sale
of corrodies. Such were not to be sold without
his special licence, but except that chapter the
libellum was to be read before the convent in
chapter twice a year, during Advent and Lent.
On 27 October*! following the archbishop
granted the prior licence to hear confessions.
On 20 December 1463 ” the same archbishop
commanded the prior to warn all the officials
and administrators of the goods of the house to
render a true account before the auditors whom
he had appointed.

There is not much of importance to add as
to the later history of the priory. In 1380-1
there had been twenty-four canons taxed besides
the prior,and a single conversus.? In 1526 the clear
annual value was returned as £524 15s. 84d.,“
and at the Dissolution £547 6s.114d.% Twice a
Prior of Bridlington was summoned to Parliament,

38 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1056.

89 Prickett, Priory Ch. of Bridlington, 26.

“© York Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 156.

| Ibid. fol. 1544. * Tbid. fol. 1218.

* Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 63, no. 12.

““$.P, Dom. 1526, return made by Brian Higdon,
Dean of York. Two pensions of 100s. each are re-
turned as payable to Sir William Constable, kt., and
Richard Pigot, pensioners in the monastery of Brid-
lington at this date.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 248.

203

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

viz., Geoffrey de Nafferton in 1295 and Gerard
de Burton in 1299.%

The last prior, William Wood, took part in
the Pilgrimage of Grace, was attainted of high
treason on 17 January 1537, and with the
Abbots of Fountains and Jervaulx, the ex-
Abbot of Rievaulx and the ex-Prior of Guis-
borough, was put to death, the property of the
house being then treated as forfeited to the
Crown.*

A letter is extant from Prior Wood to Thomas
Cromwell,*® the exact date of which is uncertain,
in reply to one advising the prior to recognize
Henry VIII as patron and founder, or to appear
before one of the king’s councillors. Prior
Wood pleaded that he was ‘deteyned with
divers infirmities’ of body ‘and in lyke manner
am feble of nature, so that without great jeo-
pardie of my lyffe, I cannot, nor am not hable
to labor in doing of my deuty to appere before
your mastershipp,’ &c. The prior therefore
sent his brother to represent him.

Another letter, printed more than once else-
where, is from Richard Bellasys, one of the
commissioners for the suppression of monasteries,”
to Cromwell, and bears date 14 November 1538.
After relating how he had treated Jervaulx Abbey,
the writer goes on to say, ‘As for Byrdlington
I have doyn nothing there as yet, but spayrethe
itt to March next, bycause the days now are so
short, and from such tyme as I begyn I trust
shortly to dyspatche it after such fashion that
when all is fynished, I trust your Lordshipp
shall think that I have bene no evyll howsbound
in all such things as your Lordshipp haith

appoynted me to doo.’

Priors oF BRIDLINGTON

Guicheman,"! occurs before 1124
Adebold,®” occurs before 1141

Bernard,® occurs between 1147 and 1168
Robert © (cognomento Scriba), 1160

“© Prickett, Priory Ch, of Briilington, 85.

* Dugdale, Men. Angi. vi, 284.

* Ibid. 34. The letter is also printed, with slight
variations of spelling in each instance, in Dugdale, Mon.
ding’ v, 567 VJervaulx) ; ibid. vi, 285 (Bridlington) ;
Burton, Wen. Eder. 372.

*} Burton, Mon. Eécr. 212, 249, note a.

Ibid. 249, he occurs temp. Thurstan, Archbishop,
and Hugh, Dean of York.

Ibid. Robert de Chesney, Bishop of Lincoln
1147-68, confirmed the church of ‘Baumber’ to
Bernard, prior, Xc.

* Prickett, Priory C4. of Bridlington, 85, 86, where
see a short account of his works. He is spoken of
as the fourth prior. In Rievaulx Chartul. (no. xiii,
p. 21) is a deed witnessed by Henry Murdac, arch-
bishop 1147-58, which is also witnessed by Roger,
Prior of Bridlington. Dr. Atkinson (p. 22 n.) suggests
that Roger may be an error for Robert.

Gregory,” occurs before 1181

Hugh,” occurs 1189-92

Helyas,” occurs 1199-1202

Hubert,® occurs 1218 and 1227

Thomas,” occurs 1231-49

John,” 1250, resigned 1255 ®

Geoffrey de Nafferton, 1260," resigned July
1289 ™

Geoffrey de Nafferton® (second time), con-
firmed 4 August 1289

Gerard de Burton,® occurs 1295, resigned
13157

Peter de Wynthorpe,®
ry25 5%

Robert de Scardeburg,” 1321, died 13427

Peter de Appleby,” 1342, resigned 1356

Peter de Cotes,’? 1356, resigned 1362

John de Thweng (St. John of Bridlington),”
confirmed 1362, occurs 1368 7%

William de Newbould, 1379

John Qweldryg, occurs 1398,” 1400 78

John, occurs 1408”

Thomas, occurs 1409 ®

John de Gisburne, occurs 1420,® died 1429

Robert Warde, 1429," resigned 1444 *4

Robert Willy, elected 1444 8

Peter Hellard, elected 1462,* resigned 1472 7

Robert Bristwyk, 1472,%° resigned 1488 ©

resigned

* Burton, Mon. Edor. 249, note e.

6 Ibid. note f.

7 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 18.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 249, note 4,

8° Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 18.

® Ibid. 5! Tbid.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 308.

® Baildon, Mon. Nores, i, 18.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 62 d.

6 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 18.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 120.

Ibid. fol, 126. ® Ibid.

Tbid. Melton, fol. 284. ” Ibid.

” Ibid. Zouch, fol. 1754.

Tbid. Thoresby, fol. 195.

7 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 18.

” Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 129.

Baildon’s MS. Notes.

™ Ibid. Probably the same person.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 249, note w.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 342.

™ Ibid. *Thid. fol. 51.

“ Burton, Mon. Eber. 249, note y.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Nevill, fol. 146.

“Ibid. He died in 1493 according to the in-
scription on his grave : ‘ Hic jacet dominus Robertus
Brystvyk quondam prior hujus loci qui obiit Anno
Domini MCCCC nonagesimo iii Cujus anime pro-
picietur Deus Amen.’ The stone was found in 1821,
and in the stone coffin below were the remains of
the prior, the hair of the beard and the serge in
which the body was wrapped being undecayed.
Prickett, Priory Ch. of Bridlington, 27.

* Yors Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 1574.

™ Tbid. fol. 2074.

* Thid.

204

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

John Curson, 1488,” resigned 1498 *

Robert Danby, 1498, died 1506 *8

John Ynglish,* 1506, died 1510 ®

John Hompton,” 1510, died 1521 7
William Browneflete,** confirmed 1521
William Wode,® confirmed 1531

Robert,’ occurs 1537.

The r14th-century seal’ is a vesica, 3} in.
by 2}in., with a design of the coronation of
our Lady. The counterseal, a vesica 22 in.
by 1$in., has a crowned figure of our Lady in
aniche, holding the Child in her left hand and
a flower in her right. The legend is :—

s’ CAPITVLI SCE MARIE DE BRIDELINGTON

The 12th-century seal’ of Gregory, Prior
of Bridlington, is a vesica, 22 in. by 14 in,
having four heads of saints, each in a circular
band inscribed witha name. These are MaRIA,
PAVLYS, AVGVSTINVS, NICHOLAVs. Of the legend
there only remains :—

. S TERCI’ HOSPES

48. THE PRIORY OF DRAX

This house was founded by William Paynel
in the reign of Henry I, with the advice of
Archbishop Thurstan. In the foundation charter
William Paynel records that he had given to
the canons serving God and St. Nicholas in the
territory of Drax the island (insulam)? called
Hallington and Middleholm, on which the
priory church was founded, as well as other land
in the neighbourhood.

Inaddition the founder gave the parish church
of Drax, the churches of Bingley, Middle Rasen,
and two others in Lincolnshire, and that of Saltby
in Leicestershire:

From other benefactors the priory received gifts,

scattered over a wide area,? most of which have

® York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 1574.

* Thid. fol. 1534. * Ibid.
8 Tbid. Savage, fol. 58. Ibid.
* Ibid. Bainbridge, fol. 144. % Ibid.
*’ Thid. Wolsey, fol. 56. % Tbid.

* Thid. sed. vac. fol. 621.

1 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 18.

1 Cat. of Seals, B.M.2711 ; Harl. Chart. 44, B. 22.

™ Tbid. 2713 ; Harl. Chart. 44, I. 3.

' Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 194.

"Ibid. 195, no. 1. ‘The site of this house was
on the south side of the River Ouse, nearly opposite
where the Derwent enters therein. The land being
80 low that it would be overflowed by every little
flood, nay, I believe I may say, by the highest spring-
tides, if not prevented by the height of strong banks :
but the ground whereon the house was built is a
little ascent above the rest, and was moted (sic) about ;
most of which, especially on the south and east
sides, is very apparent.’ Burton, Mon. Ebor. 100.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 194.

been carefully extracted by Burton from the
chartulary of Drax.*| Edward I granted the
canons free warren in their lands of Carlton,
Camblesforth, and Newhay, if not in his forest.®

On 10 August 1280° Archbishop Wickwane
visited the priory of Drax, and delivered a
number of injunctions in the chapter house.
First, he directed that henceforward, in trans-
acting the common affairs of the house, the
prior was not to be influenced by the heedless
and disordered counsel of anybody, as he had
hitherto been, inducing the contempt of seculars,
offending his brethren, and injuring the monas-
tery. He was to act according to the counsel
ofthe convent. Further, the prior was enjoined
to avoid all malicious plotting with evil wishers
of the monastery, and quarrels and foolish
rebukings of his brethren, at least in the presence
of laymen, but he was to correct and chastise
in a convenient and private place, and was to
be more diligent and circumspect in the spiritual
rule and temporal business of the house. Brother
William de Snayth, who had lately been dis-
missed from being sub-prior, was not to hold
any office, but was to give himself to monastic
contemplation, be more courteous to his brethren,
and not so much addicted to his bed, &c. Hugh
de Rykhale, on account of his contentions which
had distracted the convent, was to have the
lowest place among the priests in cloister and
convent, was to conform to rule, and hold no
office or solempnis honor of the monastery, without
the archbishop’s express assent. As he had
inordinately eaten flesh meat, he was to ab-
stain from flesh on Sundays during the current
year.

Elyas, the sub-cellarer, who wandered about
to the injury of the monastery, was not to go
outside cloister or church. ‘The archbishop re-
moved from the house a layman, John de Weland,
on account of his demerits, and denounced him
as excommunicate, for having laid violent hands
on Laurence de Lincolnia,’ one of the canons.

Elyas, a canon who violently struck John de
Lincolnia® his fellow-canon and was not yet
absolved, was daily, till the feast of All Saints,
in full chapter to humble and prostrate himself
before God, in the presence of John de Lin-
colnia, heartily imploring his prayers, and those
of the whole convent.

Twice a year the prior sub congruo testimonio
was to open and examine everyone’s carol, and

‘Burton, Mon. Ebor. 100-12.

5 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 194.

6 York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 246, 134.

7On 11 Dec. 1288 Archbishop Romanus granted
licence to Laurence de Lincolnia and another canon,
Bartholomew de Donecastria, that ‘ad arciorem reli-
gionem se transferant,’ York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus,
fol. 32.

8 Probably the same person of the name who soon
afterwards was elected prior.

205

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

anything found therein was to be appropriated to
the common use of the house.

No base persons were to be admitted to meals
in the refectory, and no laymen, except lawyers
and doctors, were to interfere with the private
affairs of the infirmary. No meals or drinkings
except such as were absolutely necessary were
to take place after general compline, and all
warming and unlawful relaxation at the in-
firmary fire was wholly forbidden at all times.
Further, the monastery was not to be burdened
by the relatives of the prior, and no canon or
brother was to receive money or payment for
work. Other punishments for faults discovered,
the archbishop deferred, hoping for amendment.
Fifteen years later Archbishop Romanus held a
visitation of the priory on 13 October 1295,° and
in a decretum sternly forbade the presence of
any unworthy (imhoneste) persons in the refectory.
Only worthy (Aoneste) persons were to have their
meals there, according to the judgement of the
president. Gossiping and relaxations, especially
in the prior’s chamber and the refectory after
compline, or after the convent had retired to
bed, were forbidden. No corrodies were to be
sold without the archbishop’s special licence.
The bursar was to render accounts twice a year
to the seniors, and they were to make the state
of the house known to the convent.

Silence was to be duly observed, and no
claustral canon was to go out without leave, and
those who did were to be punished. They
were on the other hand to be carefully engaged
in divine service, the mass of the Blessed Virgin,
and the study of books. The cloister and
infirmary were not to be open to lay people,
specially women. ‘The carols of everyone were
to be inspected once a year, so as to exclude
all suspicion of private possessions. A lamp was
to burn continually every night in the dormitory
to remove any possible chance of fault. The
sick were to be properly tended and_ useless
servants removed. The almoner was cautioned
to be more careful. Gifts were not to be
received by any member of the convent without
leave. Old clothes were to be given to the
poor. Canons of ill repute were not to have
leave to go out, nor were they to be promoted
to office. No intercourse was to be held with
women, and especially not with those who were
suspected. The prior and sub-prior were to
correct faults equitably, and licence to go out
was not to be granted except for good reasons.

At the archbishop’s previous visitation (concern-
ing which the Register is silent) J. de Eboraco only
partly cleared himself of crimes alleged against
him, and J. de Neuhay not at all. The arch-
bishop therefore ordered that for four years
J. de Eboraco was, each Friday, to have bread,
ale, and vegetables only, and Brother J. de

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 474.

Neuhay for seven years the same, except on Fri-
days in Lent and Advent when he was to have
bread and water only. They were both suspended
from the celebration of divine services, and were
to take the lowest places among the priests,
while undergoing this penance. A memorandum
is added, that on 31 December 1295, the arch-
bishop left it at the discretion of the prior to
dispense these penances when he deemed proper.

In 13247° Archbishop Melton issued a letter
on behalf of the priory, in which he stated that
the priory, because of the inundations of the
Rivers Ouse and Aire which surrounded it, the
frequent invasions of the Scots and other enemies,
and the loss of cattle, had become so impover-
ished that it was hindered from its works of
piety and hospitality.

The church of Bingley, as already noted,
was one of the founder’s gifts to the priory.”
The gift was confirmed by Archbishop Roger,
and the prior and canons appear to have fre-
quently appointed one of their number to serve
it. A strange episode is related in this connexion
in the Register of Archbishop Bainbridge,! in
which John Wilkynson, canon of Drax, was in-
volved. A rumour had been set about that, as
Wilkynson in his examination put it, ‘there
was a grete good in the cuntrey which myght
be gote, if there was any connyng men in the
cuntrey.” In other words, that there was some
hidden treasure at a place called Mixenden near
Halifax, which could be obtained by a series of
incantations. It is, perhaps, one of the most
extraordinary stories of mediaeval necromancy
on record. Six persons were charged with the
offence, the chief of whom was Thomas Jame-
son, who had served the office of Sheriff of
York in 1497, and been lord mayor in 1504,
but the canon of Drax had taken no small
share in the venture.

One of the witnesses, Henry Banke, chaplain
of Addingham, said that he had heard Brother
John the parish priest of Bingley state in the
house of Christopher Hardwick of Addingham
‘that there was as moch goode in a place besides
Halifax as wold raunsome a kyng; and that
oone Leventhorp nowe dede had seene the foote
of the kist, and the devell sitting upon it, and
that he had put a swerd to remove it, and he
nypped it a soundre in the myddist, as it had
been a rish ; and the said Sir John said it coold
never be gott but with losse of a Cristen sole.’
The evidence of ‘Sir John Wilkynson chanon of
Drax, sworne and examyned,’ is entered in the
Register. He admitted having made ‘a cerkill’
of 30 ft. compass, and that he had agreed to call

” Tbid. Melton, fol. 1614.

™ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 195, no. i.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Bainbridge, fol. 70, etc.
All the documents re'ating to the case, transcribed by
Canon Raine, are printed in the Arch. Journ. xvi,
72-81.

206

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

up a spirit called Belphares, and he related how,
when a boy of twelve, he had been present at
an invocation made at Wakefield by ‘a scolar of
Orlyaunce’ (Orleans), for a pair of bedes; he
had seen ‘in a glasse, a woman that had the
beides in her hand, and a sprite, crouned like a
Kyng, in a chare of gold, and the clerke said that
he was a sprite.’ He admitted that he and
Jameson, and another priest, James Richardson,
“were sworne upon a booke, and confered to-
gadir to make a lamina for invocation of a sprite
called Obirion,’ that Jameson had agreed to
send a horse for him to Otley ‘the Fridaie afore
the first chaunge of Marche, to come to Yorke
to hyme (Jameson), to make the lamyna, which
must be made betwixt the chaunge of the mone
and the pryme, and that was Mondaie, Tuys-
daie, and Wednesdaie ; and to make their invo-
cation on Thursday after at v of the cloke in
the mornyng, at Yorke, in a chambir to be
provided to the said Sir James (Richardson),
havyng iil) wyndowes, that is to say in every
quarter oone.” He said that Jameson came to
Bingley on St. Matthew’s Day, and showed him
that Richardson had made all ready, and desired
him to go to York, and ‘ wirke the warke’ with
Richardson. He admitted that his books were
at Drax Abbey, and that Richardson had brought
eighteen singing loaves, which he himself had
given to one of the others ; but he denied that he
had ever said that he would consecrate them,
or that they should appear in the likeness of a
child to the sprite, but he confessed that they
were all agreed that the ground where ‘the
cerkyll’ was should be hallowed, and that a
collect was copied out of the mass book, to be
recited at the hallowing of the incense and fire,
and that in the ‘book of experiment’ was the
collect for the hallowing of the ‘great holy
water.’ He admitted that he had said that their
works might be done as well in one place as
in another, for he ‘cowde make the spirite
Belphares carye it wherdir he wold,’ and he
also said that he had stated ‘opynely that the
goode cowde not be had without losse of a
Cristen Saule, and therefore he wold not execute
it.” The story is too long to be dealt with here,
as it only bears incidentally on Drax, whose
canon figured so conspicuously in it. All the
six persons charged were found guilty, and
punishments were awarded. ‘They had to walk
through the streets of York on the Sunday
following, carrying banners with grotesque char-
acters and symbols, and were to be publicly
scourged by the dean of Christianity at certain
stages. On the Thursday before the Nativity
of St. John the Baptist much the same penance
was to be performed at Bingley.

By a deed dated 5 December 1531,” the prior
and convent covenanted with Robert Threpland

18 Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 176.

and Alys his wife that they should dwell at a
grange called the Abbey Grange, and be servants
to the prior and convent. Robert Threpland
was to be ‘sergeaunte and oversear’ of all their
husbandry, as other ‘sergyauntes’ had been, and
Alys his wife was to ‘kepe the deyry house of
the sade pryor and conventes at the sade graunge.’
For this service done ‘in the most commodyous
and profitable maner that they can for the sade
pryor and convent,’ they were to receive as
follows :—Robert was to have meat and drink
in their hall as had been in times past, but if he
happened to be impotent, and unable to come to
the hall, then he was to have his reasonable meat
and drink delivered by the cook and butler to
such persons as he might send. In addition Le
was to have 135. 4d. yearly ‘and a cote clothe.’
His wife was to have every week ‘two lofes of
white breyde, and two lofes of browne breyde,
ij galons of the best ale, and foure galons of the
worse ale, and one meile of meite from the
kechyn, ons on the day, every day in tyme of
lent, and also al other days in the yere except
Wednysdays, Frydays, and Saturdays and all
fastynge days,’ and 6s. 8d. for her wages, ‘and a
garthynstede to sawe too pekkes of hemp sede in.’
If she was unable to do her work, then she was ta
provide ‘an honest woman to do the sade office,
and huswyfery, so that hit be done after a clenly
and profitable fashion.’ Robertand Alys, during
their lives, were to have ‘ gressynge for ij whyes
that never bare calfe.’ After the death of Robert
or Alys one whye was to belong to the prior
and convent. Also Robert and Alys might keep
‘one swyne’ on condition that after their deaths
the pig so kept should belong to the prior and
convent. For this appointment they paid the
prior andconvent £10in ready money. It is an
interesting and characteristic example of the way
in which such monastic appointments were
negotiated.

The priory was supervised on 15 June 1535,/4
and suppressed on 24 August following. Among
the charges then paid were 305. pro vadtis novem
confratrum from the Nativity of St. John Baptist,
each receiving 3s. 4d. At the suppression on
24 August 1535 there were ten canons, two of
whom received 26s. 8d. each and the others
23s. 4d. each. There were also twenty-nine
servants and boys.

In the account of Leonard Beckwith, from
Michaelmas 1535 to Michaelmas 1536,’ the
revenue derived from Drax was £141 105. 10d.
This may be compared with the clear value of
£78 155. 1d. in 1522,” and that of £92 75. 5d.

clear value in the Valor Eeclesiasticus.® Leonard

“4 K.R. Aug. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

5 Tbid. In 1380-1 besides the prior there were
seven canons ; Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 63, no. 12.

16 K.R. Aug. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

7 Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 64, no. 300

18 Valor Eccl. v, 65.

207

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Beckwith’s account states that there were six bells
in the ‘ campanile,’ valued at £20, and William
Emson, the late prior, received a pension of £18.
There were of plate wholly gilt two chalices
with patens, and three maser bands, together
42 oz.; and of silver parcel-gilt a chalice and
paten, and two salts, with one cover, together
32 OZ.
Priors oF Drax

Norman, occurs 1178

Alan, occurs 1205,°? 122674

Robert, succeeded and occurs 1227,” 1234”
John de Rasen, occurs after Prior Robert #4
Gernagan, c. 1243 °°

Robert, occurs 1252 *®

Adam, occurs 1272 7

Thomas de Camesale, occurs 1282,°° resigned

1286 *°

Elyas de Burton, confirmed 1287, occurs
1289 *)

War... , occurs 1291”

John de Lincoln, confirmed 1291,* occurs
as John only 1295 *4

Henry de Shirewoode, 1301,*° died 1332 *°

Gilbert de Ounsby, confirmed December 1332
(quacre, alias de Eboraco),” 1334 *8

John de Saxton alias Sapertun,*?
1349 °

John de Wiggeton, occurs 1354 *

Thomas de Shirburn, occurs 1360,” 1368,%
1388,** died 1391 *

Richard de Ledes, elected 1391 *

John de Usflet, occurs 1393,*” 1398 *

elected

'® Burton, Mon. Ebor. 114, note a.

” Yorks. Fines, John, 93.

| Burton, Men. Edor. 114, note d.

*® Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 38.

* Burton, Alon. Ebor. 114, note d.

* Thid. note ¢. *© Ibid. note f

7 Ibid. note g. * Ibid. note 4.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 28.

*° Burton, Mew. Edor. 114, note i.

3} Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 38.

* Burton, Mon. Edor. 114, note 7. Burton places
him after John de Lincoln. Mr. Baildon has altered
this order, and his change is followed here.

*° York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 38.

* Baildon, Ven. Notes, i, 38.

* Ibid. ; Cal. of Ing. p.m. 10-20 Edw. II, 264.

§ York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 1914.

* Ibid. Zouch, fol. 354.

8 Baildon, Afon. Noses, i, 38.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 195.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 354, where he
is said to have succeeded Gilbert de Eboraco, de-
ceased.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 114, note p.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 1063.

* Ibid. fol. 1384.

“ Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 38.

“* Burton, Alon. Ebor. 114, note ¢.

“ Ibid. “ Ibid. note r.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Scrope, fol. 184.

7 Ibid. notec.

William Selby, died 1429”

William Chippyndale, elected 1429

John, occurs 1465," 1475”

Thomas Hankoke *

Richard Wilson, elected 25 October 1507,"
occurs thence till 1529-30 %

William Emson, occurs 1531 to 1536,°° last
prior (pensioned)

The 12th-century seal” is a vesica, 2§ in. by
1Zin. It shows a figure of the patron saint in
his pall, blessing and holding his crozier. The
legend is :—

i SIGILLVM SANCTI NICOLAI EPISCOPI

The 12th-century seal®® of the chapter is
similar in design, but larger, and the legend is
longer. All that remains of it is :—

SIGILLVM CAPITVL ...NICH ...DE DRA...

The prior’s seal ®° of the same date is a vesica,
1gin. by 14 in., and has a half-length figure of
the prior praying. The legend is :—

SM SIGILLVM PRIORIS DE DB

49. THE PRIORY OF GUISBOROUGH

The Augustinian priory of Guisborough (or
Gisburne, as the place was usually called in the
Middle Ages) was founded by Robert de Brus,
who endowed it on a magnificent scale. The
Foundation Charter! records that he had founded
the house by the counsel and advice of Pope
Calixtus and Archbishop Thurstan.

°° Thid.
* Ibid.

“ Ibid. Kemp, fol. 346.

*! Burton, Mon. Ebor. 114, note ¢.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 195.

* York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 5196.

* Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 114,
146, 148, 153, 157, 160, 164,170. In 1523 he
became Bishop of Meath by papal provision and ‘died
about 1529’ (Cotton, Fasti Eccl. Hibernicae iii, 115).
In leases 157 (6 Nov. 1529) and 160 (31 Dec. 1529)
he is called ‘ Richard Bishop late of Meath, prior,’ &c.
In 1533-4 he was in possession of land in Roxby,
co. Lincoln (Conv. Lease, no. 158), and is then
called ‘my Lorde Richarde Bushopp of Meth.’ He
had, before then, resigned the priory of Drax. On
28 June 1531 he was commissioned by Wolsey
to bless William Wode, Prior of Bridlington (York
Archiepis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 623). His name as
Prior of Drax appears for the last time in lease 160
(31 Dec. 1529).

* In about twenty Conventual Leases between the
above dates inclusive. In only 172 (4 May 1533),.
and 175 (13 Apr. 1535) does his surname, Emson or
Empson, appear.

* Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3073, Ixxiv, 39.

* Ibid. 3074, lxxiv, 41.

*° Tbid. 3075, lxxiv, 12.

" Guisborough Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), i, 1-5.

208

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Walter of Hemingburgh, a canon of Guis-
borough who wrote within 200 years of the
founding of the priory, states that the year of its
foundation was 1129.” Pope Calixtus, however,
who confirmed the act of foundation by Robert
de Brus, died in 1124. Camden and others
give 1119 as the year of the foundation, and
although no ancient authority can now be quoted
for it, that year* seems not improbably the correct
date. Anyhow, it is certain that the foundation
cannot have been earlier than 1119 or later than
1124,

‘The generosity of the founder enabled the
canons to make a start under very favourable
circumstances. “Iwenty-nine carucates with the
advowsons of ten churches and other gifts speak
for themselves All through its history the
Bruses and their descendants continued to be the
munificent benefactors to the canons of Guis-
borough. The chief estates of the latter in
Cleveland, at Hart in Durham, and in Annan-
dale, were entirely due to gifts from that family
or from sub-infeudatories of theirs. It is true
they had other benefactors, such as Alice de
Rumilly in Cumberland, the Lascelles in
Lincolnshire, the Bardolfs at Barningham, and
the Stutevilles in the East Riding; but their
grants were not of great value, and cannot be
compared with the gifts received by the convent
from the Bruses and their descendants. Guis-
borough, which at the time of the Reformation
was the fourth richest monastery in Yorkshire,
being surpassed only by St. Mary’s, Fountains,
and Selby, may be called without any exaggera-
tion the creation of this family.’ *

The chartulary records a large number of
gifts from people of small possessions, who could
only afford to give a few acres, or even roods,
These deeds, which are mostly of the middle of
the 13th century, show that a great religious
house like Guisborough was popular, not only
with people of higher rank as the Bruses, Percies,
and Lascelles, but with the franklins and yeomen
of the time. Among the charters there are
twenty-two entitled Cartae Elemosinariae® con-
taining small gifts to the canons on behalf of the
poor, but distinct from the ordinary property of
the house. A few of them specially direct what
particular use the gift is for, as, for example, fuel
for the poor, or ‘ad lumen inveniendum pauperi-
bus qui ibi hospitantur.’® These deeds, of about
the middle of the 15th century, indicate that the
canons had some sort of hospital for the poor in
connexion with the priory before the hospital of
St. Leonard of Lowcross came into their posses-
sion. ‘These charters are followed by sixty-three

? See, as to the question of the date of foundation,
Guisborough Chartul. Introd. pp. vi-x.

* Pope Calixtus II was elected on 1 Feb. 1119.

* Guisborough Chartul. i, Introd. pp. xvi—xvii.

* Ibid. 142-8.

* Ibid. 147, no. ccliii.

which relate to the building of the church whicl
was burnt down in June 1289.”

On the death of Peter de Brus III the patron-
age of the priory passed to Agnes the wife ol
Walter de Fauconberg, and Lucy the wife of
Marmaduke de Thweng. By a charter dated
London, 26 October 1275,8 Walter and Agnes
de Fauconberg and Marmaduke and Lucy de
Thweng granted the canons the right of electing
anew prior when a vacancy occurred without
first obtaining their licence, but stipulated that
the new prior upon his election should be
presented alternately to the Fauconbergs at
Skelton and to the Thwengs at Danby for
confirmation, °

An event occurred in the early part of the
13th century which does not throw a pleasant
light on the methods which the convent pursued,
in one case at least, in endeavouring to enrich
itself. ‘The canons had obtained a large amount
of land in the parish of Kirkleatham, and wished
to get possession of the well-endowed church of
that parish as well.? They obtained three grants
of it, in almost identical terms, from William de
Kilton, the patron, and they proceeded at once
to get a confirmation of it from King John in
1210. In 1221 Maud the niece and heiress
of William de Kilton in conjunction with
her husband Richard Dawtrey claimed that
William’s grant had been obtained from him on
his deathbed, and when he was not in full
possession of his senses. At first the prior
traversed this statement, and maintained that
William de Kilton made the grant when in good
health and able to know what he was doing.
The case was adjourned, andin 1228-9 Michael
the prior released his claim, thus practically
admitting the truth of the assertion made, of
undue influence brought to bear on William de
Kilton.

Among the early grants of a special nature
made to the canons, those of a number of salinae
at Coatham! ought to be mentioned. The
salinae were situated on low marshland which
was overflowed by the higher tides with sea-
water. Artificial hillocks were raised on the
marsh land, on to the top of which the sea-water
was baled, and there evaporated by fires made
with a powdered coal which is still washed
ashore and made use of by the cottagers.
Several of these hills, locally known as salt hills,
still remain with their furnaces overgrown and
hidden. Many of the religious houses possessed
one or more,!! and in one or two instances it has
been possible to identify the particular salina,
or salt hill, belonging to a certain house.

7 Thid. i, 148-64. ® Ibid. 98, no. ccxvi.

® For a full account of this affair see Guisborough
Chartul. ii, Introd. p. vii ; 96, no. decxlv—dcclii, A.

10 Ibid. ii, 113-16, 121-3, D.

1 e.g. Byland, Ellerton on Spalding Moor, Handale,
&c. 3 Guisborough Chartul. ii, Introd. p. ix.

Zz 209 a7

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The constant raids of the Scots greatly
damaged the property of the canons.” In 1276,
before the wars with Scotland began, the goods,
temporal and spiritual, of the house (excluding
their property in Scotland) were valued at 2,000
marks. Sixteen years later they were heavily
in debt, and in 1328 commissioners appointed to
inquire into the matter certified that £36 was
all that the canons could be fairly called upon to
contribute as their share of the tenth on their
temporal property in Yorkshire.

Besides the property in the more immediate
neighbourhood, the canons received gifts of land
in Lincolnshire, Cumberland, and elsewhere,
especially in Annandale, where Robert Brus,
lord of Annandale, second son of their founder,
gave them the churches of Annan, Lochmaben,
Kirkpatrick, Cummertrees, Redkirk, and Gretna,
with dependent chapels.® From Ivo de Char-
chem, or Karkem, they received, between 1180
and 1190, the church of Hessle, in the East
Riding.”®

In 1280 Archbishop Wickwane found much
that needed correction ; in the first place he
ordered the rule of St. Augustine to be strictly
followed. No one was to go outside the cloister
after compline, for the sake of frivolity (causa
/asciviae) or drinking, under the pretext of enter-
taining guests. The canons were not to keep
expensive schools for rich or poor, unless the
Chancellor of York deemed that it would be for
the good of the monastery. “The infirmary was
filled with persons shamming illness. These were
to be turned out and punished, and the really
sick treated with greater compassion. In the
refectory the food was to be all of one kind and
divided equally. Alms were not to be bestowed
on unworthy subjects, and a costly and extrava-
gant household was to be put down at once.

Silence was to be observed more strictly in the
cloister, whilst in the quire all were enjoined to
take part in the praises of God. Any who were
silent in quire were to be forthwith expelled by
the rulers of the quire and their attendants un-
less excused by illness. In their recreation the
canons were adjured in Christ to prefer discourses
that tended to edify, rather than scurrilous or
lewd tales. Keeping accounts was to be com-
mitted to the charge of young and sharp-witted
men, who would clearly understand what was
going on. Quarrels were to be avoided, and
instead of proclaiming neighbours’ faults each
was to speak for himself. | Gifts were not to be
received without the superior’s leave, and were
at once to be assigned tocommon use. Expedi-
tions outside the priory were strictly forbidden,
unless in accordance with the rule. Agents
who became rapidly enriched by managing the

2 Guisborough Chartul. ii, Introd. p. ix.

8 Ibid. i, 102, no. ccxix.

4 Thid. ii, Introd. p. ix n. * Ibid. ii, 340-52.
Ibid. 255. “Tbid. Introd. p. xiv.

manors were to be removed at once. The
conversi, if skilled in the management of temporal
affairs, were to be made use of, so that their
sagacity might avail to the benefit of the house.

The prior was not to be too lenient or, worse
still, fearful in correcting, but, as a considerate
and prudent prelate, was to instruct and teach
the flock committed to his charge. The sub-
prior, in hearing confessions and in other matters
which belonged to his office, was to act with
such moderation and care that at the Last Judge-
ment he might receive a recompense full of
peace. Certain canons, William de Beverley,
Stephen de Kyrkeby, William de Scelton, Walter
de Stocton, and John de Salkoc, the first four of
whom had already been blamed in the earlier
part of the decretum, and who had made them-
selves notorious for quarrelling and caballing, were
debarred from promotion and were committed to
the prior and sub-prior for condign punishment.
Finally, the archbishop exhorted all, by the wit-
ness of the Cross, not to rejoice in or hasten
one another’s fall, but to show true compassion
in all things, with all fear lest a like calamity
should befall themselves.

The most important event in the earlier his-
tory of the priory is undoubtedly the fire in
1289, by which the conventual church was
completely destroyed, when, according to Walter
of Hemingburgh,’® a number of most valuable
books on theology, as well as nine chalices, the
vestments, and sumptuous images, perished, owing
to the carelessness of a plumber who with his
two men had gone to repair the roof of the build-
ing, and left the fire not properly extinguished
in the roof. The wind blowing the sparks
about set fire to the beams. In consequence of
this disaster the prior and convent petitioned
the king for licence to impropriate their churches
of Easington, Benningholme, and Heslerton,
and licence was granted 18 Edward I (1290)
for that purpose, but the impropriation does not
appear to have taken place.” The reparation of
the church must have taken a considerable time,
for in 1309 Archbishop Greenfield granted an
indulgence of forty days to all who contributed
to the rebuilding of the conventual church,
which by the sudden fury of a fire had been
devoured, together with the buildings, books, and
other properties of the convent. In 1311
Richard de Kellaw, Bishop of Durham, granted
a similar indulgence on account of the fire.”!

® Guisborough Chartul. ii, 353, where Heming-
burgh’s account is reprinted in full.

* Anct. Pet. 15414. ” Guisborough Chartul. 354.

71 The canons also excused themselves to Edward II
from granting a livery (Aiderationem) to Robert de Ry-
burgh, who was named for it by the king (in place of
Henry le Charecter, who had previously held it on the
nomination of Edward I), on the score of their im-
poverishment owing to the fire and the raids of the
Scots, &c. ; ibid. 356.

210

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Although details of the visitations of Guis-
borough, with the exception of that of 1280 by
Archbishop Wickwane, are not entered in the
registers, there are many allusions to visitations of
the house. In 1308 Archbishop Greenfield held
a visitation, and as a result two of the canons
were sent, Hugh de Croft to Bridlington, and
Geoffrey de Caldebek to Kirkham, there to
undergo penances imposed upon them for mis-
behaviour, the character of which is not speci-
fied, although the penances are detailed.

Hugh de Croft was to keep convent in
quire, cloister, refectory, and dormitory. He
was to say two psalters weekly, and to be the
last among the priests, and for three months was
to abstain from saying mass. He was to keep
silence during the common colloquy, and say the
seven penitential psalms with the litany by him-
self in the cloister. He was not to attend chap-
ter or receive or send out letters, nor was he to
speak to any secular or religious person except
in the presence of the president, and on no
account was he to go outside the precincts of
the monastery. Each Friday he was to have
bread, ale, and vegetables only, and on each vigil
of the Blessed Virgin to fast on bread and water.

The penance of Geoffrey de Caldebek was
much the same, but he seems not to have been a
priest, and there is no inhibition in his case for-
bidding him to say mass, but he was not to be
promoted to higher orders without the arch-
bishop’s special licence.

In 1309” the prior and convent had to
receive a certain canon of Bridlington, Simon
le Constable, whose offence is named in the
account of that house, and it was with evident
disgust and reluctance that the Prior of Guis-
borough yielded to the archbishop’s order and
admitted him.

In 1327%3 the archbishop had to deal with
the case of Stephen de Aukeland, a canon of the
house, who had before taking orders, or entering
the Augustinian Order, been technically guilty
of the crime of usury, in conjunction with his
mother, by lending ten shillingsin usury. He
applied to his prior for leave to go to obtain
absolution of the pope. This being refused, he
cast aside his canon’s habit and went to Avignon,
whence he brought back to the archbishop an
absolution from John de Wrotham, the papal
penitentiary. ‘The archbishop sent him back to
Guisborough, imposing upon him, for hidden sins
confessed to the archbishop, a severe penance.
He was to keep convent in all things, and was
to hold no claustral office, nor was he to go out-
side the precincts of the convent without the
archbishop’s special licence. Each Wednesday
and Friday he was to fast, to receive a discipline
from the president in chapter and, prostrate
before the altar of the Blessed Virgin, to say the

” Guisborough Chartul. 379. 3 Ibid. 385.

seven penitential psalms with the litany, humbly
imploring divine grace and the help of the saints.
He was to abstain from celebrating and all
ministration of the altar and be last in the con-
vent. In 1315 *4 two commissions were issued
to correct the defects, crimes, and excesses dis-
covered at the visitation.

The canons of Guisborough in 1319 *8
utterly refused to admit one of the Templars,
Robert de Langton, who had been sent first to
Bridlington on the dispersion of the order, and
had been transferred by the pope to Guisborough.
The canons were only induced to obey under
threat of excommunication.

About this time the priory seems to have
been reduced to great straits. On 23 April
1323 °° Archbishop Melton was constrained to
allow the convent to sell two or three corrodies,
and to let to farm for a year their church of
Kirkburn, Again,on 27 March, they had to ask
for further licence to sell more corrodies and to
let the church of Kirkburn for two years.

In 1380-1 the convent consisted of a prior,
twenty-five canons, and two conversi.™

On 19 October 1523 8 James Cokerell, the
prior, was instituted to the rectory of Lythe near
Whitby, which for some time he held im com-
mendam. A very strange and simoniacal ar-
rangement was entered into with the previous
rector, who resigned on condition that the prior
and convent paid him £200 on the feast of
St. Mark next ensuing, and bound themselves to
give him a yearly pension of £44 during his life,
by even portions half-yearly, on the feast of
St. Mark and St. Martin in winter, to be
delivered to him ‘at the founte situate in the
body of the cathedrall church of Saynte Paule
of London betwene the howores of eght and
eleven of the clok before none on every of the
saide festes.? This agreement bears date
4 November 1523.”

* Ibid. 391, 392. ™ Ibid. Introd. p. lvii; 392.

* Ibid. 398.

7 Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 63, no. 12.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 107.

® Thid. fol. 1084. This use of the font in St. Paul’s
is mentioned in another grant by the Prior and con-
vent of Guisborough, dated 14 June 29 Hen. VIII
(1537), where they granted to Ralph Sadleyra yearly
rent of £40, to be paid in quarterly portions ‘in
ecclesia cathedrali sancti Pauli London super petram
infra ecclesiam predictam existentem vocatam the
ffontstone’ ; Conventual Leases, Yorks. no. 213. It
also occurs in an annual pension of £6 granted
1 June 1530 by the Abbot and convent of Whitby to
Ralph Belfield, which was to be paid ‘in ecclesia
cathedrali Sancti Pauli London super fontem baptis-
malem inter horas octavam et undecimam ante meri-
diem’ (ibid. no. 993). Mention is also made of an
annual rent of £118 to be paid ‘ uppon the ffountstone
in the Temple Church, London,’ 3 Jas. 1; Yorks. Arch.
Fourn. xix, 474. As to ‘The Old Fount Stone’ on
which money was paid in Christ Church, Dublin,

211

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The clear annual value in 1535 was
£628 6s. 8d.% The prior and convent paid £8
a year for a student at the university, and among
the reprises were alms, including the portion
of a canon daily given to thirteen poor persons
in bread, ale, and meat, in honour of the
Blessed Virgin for the souls of Robert de Brus,
the founder, and Agnes his wife, amounting
to 100s. yearly. Also alms on the feast
of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(15 August), given in bread and meat to all poor
folk coming to the monastery, for the soul of
Robert de Brus, amounting to 60s. Alms at
the obit of Peter de Brus II for 1,000 poor,
66s. 8d. yearly. Alms at the obit of William
de Brus, brother of the founder, 40s. Alms
given at the seven principal feasts for the soul
of Peter de Brus, in bread, viz., 7 quarters of
wheat, 46s. 8d. Daily alms from Ash Wednes-
day to Maundy Thursday in feeding three poor
persons, 335. 4d. Alms on Maundy Thursday
in bread, money, and herrings, to thirteen poor
persons, 40s. Alms yearly given to thirteen
poor widows for the soul of Marjorie de Brus,
13 quarters of wheat, {4 6s. 8d. Daily alms
during Lent, 3 quarters of peas, 125. The whole
amounted to £24 5s. 8d. It can be easily under-
stood from this what a loss to the poor the disso-
lution of the larger monasteries must have been.

At the Dissolution there were twenty-five
inmates of the house who received various pen-
sions, which were to begin on 25 March 1540.
When an inquiry was made in 1552 *) Robert
Pursglove, the late prior, appeared, and complained
that he was in arrear a whole year. One of the
canons, Henry Alaynby, was deceased ; another,
Gilbert Harryson, appeared with his patent, and
was behind for half a year, ‘and axed it and
they saied they had no money’; Christopher
Malton was said to be ‘dwelling in Lyllye in
Hartforthshire’; John Harryson was ‘ behind
for a yere and a half at Michelmas last and
requyred payment; and Walter Whallay and he
(sic) answered that his bokes was at London and
when he saue his bokes he wold pay hym.’
Eight canons on the roll, besides Henry Alaynby,
did not appear, and eleven, including those above
mentioned, appeared with their patents, and
against seven no other entry is made to show
whether they were paid or not.

It was at first proposed on the dissolution of
the priory to found a collegiate church of secular

and which was removed at the ‘restoration’ of that
building by the late Mr. G. E. Street, see The Carhe-
cral Ch. of Holy Trinity, Dublin, by William Butler,
1901, p. 10. Mfoney payments were made on the
tomb (or shrine) of St. Alkelda in the nave of
Middleham Collegiate Church ; Richmond Wills (Surt.
Soc.), 129n. The stone was removed at the last
‘ restoration.’

» Vaior Eccl. v, 80.

| Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 25.

canons in its place.*?_ The scheme provided for
a dean, four prebendaries, six petty canons “to
syng in the quier,’ four singing men, six choris-
ters with a master, a gospeller and epistoler,
and a grammar schoolmaster, a steward, auditor,
and four poor men. It need hardly be said that
the scheme only existed on paper.

Priors oF GUISBOROUGH *

William de Brus, occurs temp. Archbishop
Thurstan *

Cuthbert, occurs 1146-54

Ralph, occurs c. 1174-80

Raold, occurs 1199

Lawrence, occurs 121 I-12

Michael, occurs 1218-34

John, occurs 1239-51, 1257

Ralph de Irton, occurs 1262, elected Bishop
of Carlisle 1280

Adam de Newland, occurs 1280

William de Middlesburg, elected 1281

Robert de Wilton, elected 1320-1

John de Derlington, elected 1346

John de Horeworth or Hurworth, elected
1364, resigned 1393

Walter de Thorp, elected 1393

John de Helmesley, occurs 1408

John Thweng, elected 1425

Richard Ayreton (Prior of Healaugh Park),
elected 1437

Thomas Darlington, elected 1455

John Moreby, elected 1475

John Whitby, resigned 1491 and re-elected,
resigned 1505

John Moreby (second time ?), elected 1505,
blessed 1511 ®

William Spires, elected 1511 *8

James Cokerell, elected 1519, occurs 1534

Robert Pursglove alias Sylvester, occurs 1537,

1539

The ra2th-century seal *” is a vesica, 2} in. by
14 in., with our Lady seated and reading from
a book on a lectern. The legend is—

HH SIGILLYM SANCTE MARIE DE GISEBVRN

” Henry VIII's Scheme of Bishopricks (ed. Cole,
1838), fol. 44.

* This list is taken from that in the Guisborough
Chartul. ii, Introd. pp. xxxix—xlvi, where authority is
given for each name and date.

* Tt is said that he was brother of the founder, and
died in 1145. 40s. in alms were annually distributed
at the obit of William de Brus, brother of the founder :
Valr Eccl. v, 80.

* Commission to John, Bishop of Negropont, to
bless John Moreby, Prior of Gisburn, 10 Sept. 1511 ;
York Archiepis. Reg. Bainbridge, fol. 234.

* Confirmation of the election of William Spires as
Prior of ‘Gisburn,’ 13 Dec. 15113; York Archiepis.
Reg. Bainbridge, fol. 244.

7 Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3186, xxiv, 49.

212

Sr. Joun’s Priory, Ponrerracr GuisporouGn Priory
(a2ru Century)

(12TH Century)

Harremrrice Priory (obverse) Hactemerice Priory (reverse)
(147TH Century) (1g7H CenrTury)

YorksutreE Monastic Seats—Prate Il

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

The circular 13th-century seal, 2%in. in
diameter, has on its obverse our Lady crowned
and seated and holding the Child, with this
inscription at the sides—

AUE MARIA GRACIA PL’

On either side of her chair kneels a canon,
with a sun above his head.

The reverse has St. Augustine seated in a
similar chair, blessing and holding his staff. At
the sides are the words—

ORA P NOB’ BE AVGV
Above the kneeling canons are moons, The
legend is too much destroyed to be legible.

so. THE PRIORY OF HALTEMPRICE

With the exception of the two charterhouses
at Hull and Mount Grace,’ the Augustinian
priory of Haltemprice was the last founded of
Yorkshire monasteries. More than seventy
years had elapsed since the establishment of any
monastery in Yorkshire, and rather more than a
century since the foundation of that of Healaugh
Park,? the most recent of the Augustinian
priories, when Thomas Wake, lord of Liddell,
began his foundation of the priory of the Holy
Cross at Haltemprice.

In December 1320* Pope John XXII issued a
mandate to the Archbishop of York to license
Thomas Wake to found a monastery of the
order of St. Augustine in his town of Cotting-
ham, and to incorporate the church of the said
town, being of the founder’s patronage, with it.
An abbot or prior was to be appointed, and the
number of canons determined. In Cottingham,
however, a secure title to the site could not be
obtained, and on 26 June 13224 Edward II
granted licence by Letters Patent to Thomas
Wake to confer a messuage in Newton on a
religious house of whatever order he wished to be
built there, and also to endow it with a carucate
of land and other property, as well as with the
advowson of the church of Cottingham. The
original site was evidently in Cottingham itself,
and Newton, about two miles south of Cottingham,
was within the parish, On 1 January 1325-6°
Pope John XXII issued a bull, addressed to the
archbishop, reciting that Thomas Wake had
begun to build an Augustinian monastery in his
town of Cottingham, and had erected the church
and other of its buildings, and that several canons

* Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3187, 50, 51.

'Hull 1377 ; Mount Grace 1396.

"Circa 1218, 3 Cal. Papal Letters, ii, 210.

‘Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 519.

SAdd. Chart. 20554 (printed, but not quite
accurately, in Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 520, no. il).

of the house of Bourne inthe diocese of Lincoln
had, with the leave of their abbot, taken up their
abode in it, and were celebrating mass and divine
offices, but that it had been found that owing to
certain statutes, constitutions, and customs of the
kingdom of England, the heirs or successors of
the founder would have power to demolish it.
The pope granted licence that the monastery
should be removed to another fit place, and when
so founded, the archbishop was to order the
canons, and unite the church of Cottingham to it.
The monastery therefore was removed to New-
ton. By his foundation charter, dated the Sun-
day after the Conversion of St. Paul (25 January)
1325-6,° Thomas Wake granted to God, Blessed
Mary, and all saints, in honour of the Nativity of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Annunciation of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Exaltation of the
Holy Cross, and for his soul, and those of his wife,
his father and mother, and his ancestors and
heirs, &c., to the canons regular of Alta Prisa
his manors and vills of Newton, Willerby, and
Wolfreton, with the rents and services of the free
tenants and serfs, ordaining that those three vills
Newton (que nunc Hawtemprice vocatur), Willerby,
and Wolfreton should be made a liberty, with a
court of frankpledge distinct from Cottingham,
and should have assize of bread and ale, &c. He
also gave half the toll of the market of Cotting-
ham, and of the fairs there,’ and the advowsons
of the churches of Cottingham, Kirk Ella,
Wharram Percy, and Belton in the Isle of
Axholme.2 The advowson of Kirk Ella® had
originally been given to the abbey of Selby by
Gilbert de Tyson, and confirmed to that house
by Richard I, and it continued a rectory while it
belonged to Selby. On the request of Thomas
Wake, Edward III granted licence in 1328 to
the Prior and convent of Haltemprice to give
certain land in Hessle to Selby in exchange for
the advowson of Kirk Ella, and to appropriate
the church to their priory. The original grant
of this church by Thomas Wake in 1325
suggests that the arrangement with Selby was in
contemplation, but had not been effected in law.
It was not, indeed, until 1331 that the Abbot
and convent of Selby granted the church of Kirk

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 519.

"Burton, Mon. Ebor. 313. According to Burton
(p- 314) the founder granted the custody of St.
Leonard’s Hospital at Chesterfield to the priory of
Haltemprice, but this is not mentioned in the original
charter. Burton refers to his appendix (which has
not been printed) for authority for this statement.

*Boniface IX confirmed the appropriation of
Belton Church to Haltemprice on 1 June 1399, the
value not exceeding go marks, and that of Haltem-
price not exceeding 400. The church was to be
served by one of their canons, or by a secular priest
removable at their pleasure. Ca/. Papal Letters, v,
185.

*See as to the church of Elveley (Kirk Ella)
Burton, Mon. Ebor. 315.

213

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Ella to Thomas Wake (and not to Haltemprice),
and not till 1343 that Archbishop Zouch, on
the death of Robert de Spirgurnell, then rector,
appropriated the church to Haltemprice, and
ordained a vicarage therein, which was to be held
by one of the canons of Haltemprice. The
appropriation of the churches of Kirk Ella and
Wharram Percy to Haltemprice was confirmed
on 13 June 1352 by Pope Clement VI."
Other gifts were made to the priory, and in
13611! John de Meaux gave or confirmed the
manor of Willerby and 6 acres of land there, on
condition that during his life the canons should
pay him the sum of £32 yearly, and that three
canons, while he lived, and six afterwards, should
perform matins with the other hours, mass,
vespers, and compline, with Dirige and Placebo
for his soul and the souls of Maud his wife,
Geoffrey de Meaux his father, and the lady
Scolastica his mother, Joan, Countess of Kent, and
all faithful departed. On 10 September 1325 ”
Archbishop Melton directed the Archdeacon of the
East Riding and his official to go ‘ad locum juxta
Cotingham situatum,’ which certain canons of the
monastery of Bourne in the diocese of Lincoln
were inhabiting, the report of whose excesses had
reached the archbishop’s ears, and to inquire as
to them, and correct abuses. The expression
juxta Cotingham seems to imply that the house
was not then in Cottingham, and therefore at
Newton, otherwise Haltemprice, but it was not
until eighteen months later (5 May 1327 7%) that
Thomas de Overton, a canon of Bourne, was
appointed first Prior of Haltemprice. The rule
of the first prior was brief, for on 28 Jan-
uary 1328-9" the archbishop directed Denis
Avenel, Archdeacon of the East Riding, to
inquire into the election of Robert Engaigne as
Prior of Haltemprice, vacant by the death of
Thomas de Overton. The new prior had been
elected by Brothers Walter de Hekyngton and
Henry de Northwell, it being reported that there
were only these three canons belonging to the
priory at the time. The archdeacon replied on
28 February’ that he had made the necessary
inquiry, and having found that all had been
rightly done, he had installed the new prior.
Prior Robert de Hickling, who held office for the
first time from 1349 till 1357,'® when he was
succeeded by Peter de Harpham, on whose
resignation in 1362 ” he was elected fora second
term of office, does not seem to have been a
successful ruler of the house, for in 13677
Archbishop Thoresby ordered an investigation of
the state of the house of Haltemprice, which

” Cal. Papal Letters, iii, 468.

"Burton, Mon. Ebor. 317.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 2974.
8 Tbid. fol. 301.

“bid. fol. 311.

Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 1974.
Ibid, fol. 2174.

Tid. fol. 311.
"Tid. fol. 207.

public report declared was so gravely burdened
by debt, and in so parlous a state owing to the
indiscreet rule of the prior and the carelessness
of the officials, that absolute ruin was threatened.
To the prior the archbishop wrote that Robert
de Burton, one of the canons, was to be associ-
ated’ with him in the rule of the house till
Michaelmas, without whose assistance he was to
do nothing pertaining to the temporal business of
the house.

On 10 November 1400” Boniface IX
granted an indulgence of the ‘portiuncula’ to
penitents who visited and gave alms on the feasts
of the Annunciation and St. Michael to the
church of the Augustinian priory of ‘ Hautin-
prisse,’ with an indult for the prior and six other
confessors, secular or religious, deputed by him,
to hear confessions, and on 21 May 14027! the
same pope granted an indult to the Augustinian
Prior and convent of ‘ Hautenpriis,’ who by the
institutions and customs of their order were
bound to wear sandals (ocreas), that in future
they might wear shoes (calciamentis seu sotularibus
bassis et communibus),

On 3 September 1411 7? Pope John XXIII,
having learnt that the building and foundation of
the Augustinian priery of St. Mary the Virgin
and the Holy Cross of ‘Hautenpris’ had been
begun in times not far remote, and by reason
of its founder’s death was not completed and
its endowment left insufficient, and, further,
that the bell-tower of its church had been lately
blown down, ruining the church and certain of
the priory buildings, and that a fire had destroyed
the costly priory gate and a number of the
adjoining offices, and that a number of the other
buildings were in ruin, so that the monastery
was scarcely habitable for the prior and convent,
regranted the indulgence of the ‘portiuncula’
for a period of ten years. This is the only
information there is as to these disasters which
had befallen the priory at this period. In 1424,”
Richard Worleby having resigned the office of
prior, John Thwynge (sub-prior) was elected by
the other ten canons,”

When Henry VI in 1440 granted a charter to
the town of Kingston-upon-Hull, constituting it
a county of itself, the whole of the site of the
priory was included in the county of the town.
This, says Burton,” led to a dispute, which was
referred to Bryan Palmes, serjeant-at-law, and
others. The award was that the prior had all
such liberties, franchises, and royalties as the
lordship of Cottingham ever had, but that while
Cottingham carried its felons and murderers to

Ibid. fol. 2174.

” Cal. Papal Letters, v, 376.

"Ibid. 515. * Ibid. vi, 295.

” York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 349.

*Tn 1380 there were eight canons besides the prior.
Cler. Subs. R. bdle. 63, no. 12.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 315.

214

RELIGIOUS

York Castle, the monastery of Haltemprice,
being in Hullshire, carried theirs to Hull.

The commissioners supervised the house on
26 May 1536 * and suppressed it on 12 August
following ; Robert Collynson was then prior, and
there were nine ‘confratres.’ Law expenses
are recorded in going to London and Hull in
actions ‘ versus homines ville de Hull.’ There
were forty servants and boys at the time of the
suppression. As to superstition, Drs. Layton
and Legh” say that there was a ‘peregrination ’
to Thomas Wake for fever, and that an arm of
St. George was had in veneration, and a piece of
the Holy Cross, and the girdle of the Blessed
Virgin, esteemed salutary to women in child-
birth.

The clear annual
£100 os. 344.¥

In the return 6 Edward VI,” as to the
payment of pensions, the commissioners reported
under ‘ Alt’price’°—‘ Robert Collynson nuper
prior de Hawdymprice obijt circa x™ diem
octobris ultimo elapso [1551] t his pencon was
by yere xx li.’ No other names are given, from
which it may be surmised that no members of
the house were then alive.

value in

1535 was

Priors OF HALTEMPRICE

Thomas de Overton, 1327, died 1328 #

Robert Engayne, elected 1329,” resigned *

John de Hickling, confirmed 1331 *

Thomas de Elveley, confirmed 1332,%°
resigned 1338 *6

William de Wolfreton, 1338,” died 1349 ®

Robert de Hickling, 1349,°*° resigned 1357 *

Peter de Harpham, 1357,*! resigned 1362”

Robert de Hickling, elected 1362 * (query
second time), occurs 1367 “4

Peter (query de Harpham a second time),
occurs 1370*

Robert Claworth, died 1391 *

William de Selby, confirmed 1391-2,* occurs
1414%

Richard Worleby, occurs 1415, 1423,
resigned °1

KR. Aug. Views of Accts., bdle. 17.

71. and P. Hen. VIII, x, p. 137.

* Valor Eccl. v, 127.

7° Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle 76, no. 23.

*° York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 301.

31 Tbid. fol. 310. 3 Thid. 3 Tbid. fol. 215.
“Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 519. % Tbid.
© York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 327.

37 Thid. Ibid. Zouch, fol. 1964.

* Ibid “Tbid. Thoresby, fol. 1974.
% Tbid. “ Thid. fol. 207.
® Tbid. “Ibid. fol. 217.

Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 80.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Arundel, fol. 314.

7 Thid. 8 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 80.
*° Baildon’s MS. Notes.

% Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 80.

51 York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 349.

HOUSES

John Thweng, elected 1424 (occurs 1425,
1430-5, 1437)”

Robert Thweng, occurs 1435, 1439

Thomas Dalehouse, elected 1441," resigned
1457"

Robert Holme, confirmed 1457 ©

William Maunsel, elected 1471-2,°° died
1502”

William Kirkham, 1502,°° died 1506”

John Wymmersley, 1506, died 1514%

John Nandike, confirmed 1514, occurs 1517 °

Nicholas Haldesworth, elected 1518 “

Richard Fawconer, elected 1528, resigned
1531 %

Robert Colynson, elected 1531-2,” last prior

The remarkable 14th-century seal is circular,
23 in. in diameter. On the obverse,® inclosed
in an octofoil, having fleurs de lis and leopards’
heads alternately in the spandrels, is a representa-
tion of the house, with two banners on its roof of
the arms of Thomas, Lord Wake of Liddell, the
founder. On the right is a shield of his arms,
two bars with three roundels in the chief, and
on the left is a burelly shield which perhaps
represents the arms of the Stutevilles of Liddell,
whose heiress was great-grandmother of the
founder. Below is a third shield charged with a
cross paty. The legend is

FH CEO EST LE SEAL LABBE E LE COVENT DE
COTINGHAM QVE NOVS THOMAS WAKE SINGNOVB
DE LIDEL AVOMES FOVNDE,

The reverse, in an architectural octofoil,
shows a three-storied architectural composition
with a rood in the uppermost compartment.
Below, the prior kneels between St. Peter and
St. Paul, and at the bottom are five praying
canons. Outside this design are two kneeling
figures. That to the left is the founder, Thomas,

There seems to be some confusion here. John
Thwynge has been found as prior by Mr. Baildon in
1425, 1430, 1435, 1437, while Robert Thwynge
as prior occurs in the same list in 1435 and 1439.

5 York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 4484 (a canon of
Guisborough).

“Tbid. W. Booth, fol. 109. 5 Thid.

5° Tbid. Geo. Nevill, fol.142. Is called ‘ Manuell’,
Conventual Leases, York, no. 263 (10 Dec. 1496),
and an alias ‘Marshal,’ Burton, Mon. Ebor. 318.

York. Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 51.

8 Thid. *Thid. fol. 59. °° Thid.

51 Ibid. Bainbridge, fol. 1454. * Thid.

§§ Conventual Lease (as John Nendyk), no. 264.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 364.

® Tbid. fol. 1924. *Tbid. Lee, fol. 22.

Tn Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 80, an alias ‘Colson’
is given. His name occurs in several Conventual
Leases, and always as in the Archiepiscopal Registers
Colynson or Collynson.

8 Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3004, Ixxiv, 36.

® Ibid. 3005, D.C., F. 13.

215

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Lord Wake, with his arms upon his ailettes ;
that to the right is his wife. Above each of
them is a banner of Wake, and the same arms
are repeated on a small shield at the base of the
composition. The legend on this side is a
continuation of that on the obverse, and runs

WA EN L’AN DE L’INCARNACION MILL’ CCCXXX
SECOVNDE AL HONOVR DE LA VERAI CROYZ E
DE NRE DAME E SEYNT PERE E D’ SEYT POVL.

51. THE PRIORY OF HEALAUGH
PARK

The priory of Healaugh Park originated in a
hermitage in the wood of Healaugh.' Bertram
Haget granted to Gilbert, a monk of Marmou-
tier, and his successors, the hermitage land in
the wood of Healaugh and other cleared spaces
of ground there, as defined by certain bounds
set out in his charter.? Geoffrey Hazet, his son,
confirmed to God, St. Mary, and the church of
St. John de Parco, and to the monk Gilbert and
his successors dwelling there, the lands and
woods as his father’s charter had defined them.®
Among the witnesses to this charter was Abbot
Clement [of St. Mary’s, York], who succeeded
in 1161 and died in 1184.4. The date, there-
fore, must be between those limits, which makes
the original foundation of the hermitage con-
siderably earlier than has usually been supposed.

In 1203° Henry, Prior of Marton, and the
convent of that house, quitclaimed any right
they might have over the hermitage in the park
of Healaugh. Bertram Haget had four daughters,
one of whom, Alice, inherited Healaugh. She
married John de Friston, and their daughter
Alice married Jordan de Santa Maria, and with
him, crea 1218,° definitely established the Augus-
tinian Priory at the place where the earlier
hermitage had existed. By their charter’ they
granted to God, St. John the Evangelist of
Healaugh Park, and William, prior, and canons
there, the site of the monastery and other
lands and rights. William, the first prior,
was installed on the feast of St. Lucy
(13 December) 1218. He was prior for thirteen
and a half years, and died in 1233.8 Very soon
after its foundation the priory received from Alan
de Wilton a grant of the hospital of St. Nicholas
juxta Yarm,° of which, probably, he was the
founder. The hospital remained in possession

1 Burton, Mon. Ebor. 281.

? Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 438, no. i.

“See above, p. 111.

5 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 438, no. ii.

§ Ibid. 438, 439, no. iv, v.

"Ibid. 439, no. v.

® Cartul.de Parco Helagh (Cott. MSS. Vesp. A,
iv), fol. 18.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 636, no. ii.

* bid.

of the priory till the Dissolution, the con-
vent sending one of its canons to take charge
of it.

Their other possessions, of considerable extent
though not of much value, are set out in
alphabetical order by Burton.° ‘Their two
churches were Wighill (adjoining Healaugh),
given before 1288,"! and Healaugh, granted to
them about 1398” and appropriated in 1425.)°
They also had at one time a moiety of the
church of Leathley, to which they presented,’*
and at the Dissolution were receiving a pension
from that church.

In the Valor Ecclesiasticus’® the total revenues
of the house were returned at £86 6s. 6d., the
reprises being £19 2s. 7d., leaving a clear annual
revenue of £67 35. 11d. only.

Archbishop Wickwane visited Healaugh on
11 May 1280 and issued the following in-
junctions.” The rule of St. Augustine and
the statutes of Godfrey, his predecessor, were to
be read (recitart) at the beginning of each month,
and observed. Habits and shoes were to be
given to each member by a common minister of
the house, as required, and the distribution of
money [for their purchase] abandoned. The
canons were not to be sent out singly, or per-
mitted to remain in the service of great people.
They were not, especially after compline, to
drink with guests outside the cloister or else-
where, and were forbidden to walk about in
the adjacent woods or other places, unless of
necessity, and with the leave of the president.
No corrodies or other wasteful burdens for the
house were to be granted. Silence was to be
decently observed, and the accounts made up
yearly. Flesh meat was not to be eaten by the
strong and healthy members, against the require-
ments of the rule, on the second and fourth
ferias of the week. A sub-prior was to be
appointed without delay, and the canons were
on no account to receive any female as a guest
or to stay at the house without the archbishop’s
special licence. Trouble appears to have arisen
a few years later, and in 129478 Archbishop
Romanus instructed his official to terminate
certain contentions between the prior and some
of the canons.

Archbishop Greenfield in 1307’? found the
house burdened with corrodies and annuities
beyond its means, and much impoverished by
sales of land.

Burton, Mon Ebor. 281-4. 4 Tbid.

* Pat. 21 Ric. HI, m. 36.

8’ Lawton, Coll. Rerum Eccl. 63.

“ Archbishop Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 29, 403
Archbishop Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 32.

Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. vi, 441, no. x.

1% Valor Eccl. v, 8.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 244, 134-

6 Ibid. Romanus, fol. 46.

* Tbid. Greenfield, fol. 63.

216

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Archbishop Melton visited Healaugh in
1320,” on which occasion he ordered his pre-
decessor’s decretum to be read in chapter and
diligently observed. As he found the monastery
heavily charged with debts, pensions, corrodies,
and liveries, the prior and all the officials were
to use all possible moderation. The sick canons
‘were to be properly treated according to the
character of their illnesses, and an elderly and
discreet canon was to have charge of them.
Divine service was to be devoutly celebrated
according to the different seasons, and canons in
priests’ orders were not to surcease from the
celebration of masses.

All the money, without any deduction, was
to be handed to two bursars who, according to
the direction of the prior, would spend it on the
needs of the house. No one was to retain any
servant who was burdensome to the house, use-
less, or who was defamed of the vice of incon-
tinence or any other crime. ‘Their manor at
Yarm was held on condition of celebrating for
the souls of the founders, and also for hospitality ;
this was to be done as hitherto.

All the canons were enjoined that if they
had any of the goods of the house they should
return them to the prior and help to recover
any lost goods. The secrets of the chapter
were not to be revealed. A chamberlain was to
be appointed who would provide the canons with
clothes and habits as funds allowed.

William de Marisco had given the house two
carucates of land in Marston and Hoton for a
daily chantry for his soul in their house, and
this chantry was to be performed, and they were
bound to find two tapers on festivals throughout
the year in the chapel of Hoton for the souls of
William de Marisco and his wife.

The prior, sub-prior, cellarer, and other
officials having administration of the goods of the
house were to be careful that their fellow canons
were properly provided with meat and drink,

The visitation resulted in the resignation, on
the day following,”’ of William de Grymston,
the prior, which was made in full chapter before
the archbishop and his clerks, and at the same
time Henry de Shepeley, the sub-prior, also
resigned. After this, the canons all voted for
Robert de Spofford, the cellarer, except himself.
He was thereupon installed, and Brother Richard
de Bilton was elected sub-prior, and Brother
Stephen de Levyngton, cellarer.

Four years later Stephen de Levyngton and
another canon, Nicholas de Cotum, appear in a
very bad case of immorality. ‘The archbishop,
writing to the prior on 13 September 1324,”
said that to the scandal and shame of their order
and habit, ‘in carne enormiter sunt collapsi.? He
therefore enjoined a severe penance upon them,

York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 142.
4 Tbid. fol. 1374. 7 Ibid. fol. 168.

They were continuously to keep convent, quire,
refectory, dormitory, and chapter, unless hindered
by sickness, were to take the lowest place in
the convent, not to go outside the precincts of
the monastery in any way, or hold conversa-
tion with women. Each Wednesday and Friday
they were to receive a discipline in chapter
from the president, and on each of those days to
say the seven penitential psalms with the litany
before the altar of the Blessed Mary. Each
week they were to say one psalter, and every
Wednesday to fast with one service of fish and
vegetables, and every Friday in like manner to
fast on bread and ale only ; and they were to
hold no administration or office in the house.

It is certainly surprising that the next entry
in the archbishop’s register should record, on
12 August 1333,” the admission of Stephen de
Levyngton to the office of prior on the death of
Robert de Spofford.

In 1344 Archbishop Zouch, regarding the
wasted condition of the priory, burdened by
debt and other ills owing to careless govern-
ment, directed, once again, that no alienations,
&c., were to be made without his special
licence. Matters do not seem to have improved,
for just ten years later an indulgence was
granted for forty days by Archbishop Thoresby,
in 1354,” to those who helped the house, which,
poorly endowed, had its buildings dilapidated,
and its stock reduced by pestilence. In 1380-1%
there were six canons besides the prior. In
1401” Boniface IX granted an indult to the
Augustinian Prior and convent of St. John the
Evangelist’s, Healaugh Park, who by the insti-
tutions and customs of their order were bound
to wear sandals (creas), to wear, in future, shoes.
On 5 May 1460% Archbishop W. Booth
notified the sub-prior and convent that he had
accepted the resignation of Thomas Cotyngham,
their prior, and directed them to elect a
successor. They elected William Berwyk,
vicar of Wighill, and a canon professed in their
house. The archbishop, however, wrote to
Christopher Lofthouse, canon of Bolton,” stating
that he had heard of the pretended election of
Berwyk, and had annulled and quashed it, and
with the licence of the Prior and convent of.
Bolton he appointed him Prior of Healaugh.
Why the archbishop took this action does not
appear, nor how the canons of Healaugh received
it, but Christopher Lofthouse was installed on
22 May 1460, and was prior for more than
thirteen years, ‘et furatus est bona hujus domus.’

3 Ibid. fol. 1954. * Tbid. Zouch, fol. 17.

* Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 17.

6 Subs. R. bdle. 63, no. 12.

*” Cal. Papal Letters, v, 498.

* York Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 154.

* Ibid.

* Cott. MS. Vesp. A. iv; the list of priors begins
fol. 14.

3 anf 28

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

However, William Berwyk succeeded Lofthouse,
and the chartulary recording his name as_ prior
says, ‘qui fuit vicarius de Wechall et canonicus
de nostra propria domo verus’; and of William
Bramman, vicar of Healaugh, who in 1475
succeeded Berwyk, it is said ‘et erat canonicus
proprius in hac domo rasus.’

Upon Thomas Cotyngham’s resignation *! the
archbishop assigned him the following provision :
He was to have a chamber at the south end of
the nave of the conventual church, which was
to be divided into two rooms for his habitation,
as well as a specified allowance of food, and a
servant ; and further the archbishop decreed that,
if the said Brother T. Cotyngham wished, he
was to use a chamber which he was wont to
occupy at the time of the synods, at York, and
the moiety of a stable within a certain mansion
of the convent opposite the cemetery of the
Friars Preachers of York. He was, in addition,
to receive 10 marks in money yearly.

In 1534 Archbishop Lee visited Healaugh
Park, and his injunctions to the prior and canons
on that occasion have been printed.*? All were
to obey the rule of St. Augustine strictly, the
prior was directed to see that the cloister doors
were closed and locked immediately after com-
pline, and not reopened till six o’clock in the
morning in summer, or seven in winter, the
keys being safely kept. No corrodies, pensions,
or fees (feoda) were henceforth to be granted,
or granges let without the archbishop’s licence,
and the prior was not to let lands or pastures, or
cut or sell wood, without the consent of the
whole convent. No one was to be professed, nor
any other person permitted to reside within the
precincts of the monastery, without the arch-
bishop’s licence. The prior was in no manner
to admit women to his company except in the
presence of two of the canons, who could hear
and see what took place, and the same regulation
was to apply to the canons. ‘Those who broke
this rule would be deemed guilty of incontinence.
The infirmary, which threatened to fall into ruin,
was to be repaired before Michaelmas.

On 30 November 1519* Peter the Prior
and the ‘monastery ’ of Healaugh Park granted
to Sir John Fountaunce, ‘broder of ye same
howse,’ ‘y** parsonegh in Helaugh w* a laith,
a kowhowse, wt all y° lande, closys, medow,
wode, and pastur, wt y* appurtenances thair unto
belongyng, after ye deseise of Sir Thomas
Pendreth, now incumbent’ &c., for thirty-one
years, paying to the prior and convent £3
yearly, and on 14 May 1520* John Fount-
aunce, canon of Healaugh Park, O.S.A., was
instituted by Cardinal Wolsey to the vicarage of
Healaugh, vacant by the death of Thomas

*! York Archiepis. Reg. W. Booth, fol. 164.

* Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xvi, 438.

* Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O), no. 309.
* York Archiepis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 49.

Penreth. On 8 March 1530* Richard, prior,
and the convent agreed to pay Richard Stryan,
‘vychar of Helaghe,’ £6 a year, and granted
him ‘one toft and one croft callyd ye vychareg,
w' all other smalle dewtes belongyng to ye
chyrche of Helaghe, y' ys to say dirige grotis,
weddyng grotis, wt all other dewtes pertenyng
to y® same, as haythe beyn customyde to ye
curet.”. On the other hand, Richard Stryan,
who was clearly a secular clerk, covenanted
“never for to clame,. ne intytyll, no chanony-
shall dewty, nor devydent, of ye sayde pryor,
convent, nor of y" successors, nor promocyon,
ne vote in y® chaptor howse, nor to mell of no
conventuall consell, from ye day of ye makyng
herof, vnto ye terme of hys lyffis ende.’

The house was visited by the commissioners
cn g June 1535 °° and suppressed on g August
following. There were then five canons besides
the prior, Richard Roundale, and eight servants,
boys, and other workmen. In the account of
Leonard Beckwith for a year from Michaelmas
1535, the revenue is set down at £114 10s. 104.,
and four bells are accounted for, valued at

£13 65. 8d.

Priors oF HeatraucH Park *””

William de Hamelech, 1218, died 1233
Elias, 1233, resigned 1256

John Nocus, 1257, resigned 1260
Hamo de Ebor, 1260, resigned 1264
Henry de Quetelay, 1264

Adam de Blide, 1281

William de Grymston, 1300

Robert de Spofford, 1320

Stephen Levyngton, 1333
Richard,*® 1357

Thomas de Yarom, 1358

Stephen Clarell, 1378 ©

John Byrkyn, 1423, resigned
Thomas York, 1429 %

Richard Areton, 1435

Thomas Botson, 1437 ”

Thomas Cotyngham, 1440
Christopher Lofthouse, 1460

* Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 303.

% K.R. Aug. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

37 This list is taken from the Chartulary, fol. 14
(Cott. MS. Vesp. A. iv). The list in all cases
where it can be checked by the Registers seems
correct, and is, no doubt, full. It contains dates
of election, &c., and by whom confirmed and
installed.

* His name, as tenth prior, has been added in
fainter ink at a later period.

*¢Fuit prior per xlv annos, novem menses et tres
dies.’

“ ¢ Stetit per sex annos, et postea depositus fuit.’

“ «Stetit in prioratu per annum et tres menses et
translatus est ad Gisburn.’

“ «Stetit in prioratu quasi per duos annos et trans-
latus est ad Bolton.’

218

RELIGIOUS

William Berwyk, 1471

William Bramman, 1475

William Ellyngton, 1480

Peter Kendayll,* confirmed 1499
Richard Roundale, confirmed 1520*

The 13th-century seal * is a vesica showing
the prior standing on acarved corbel, Legend :—

FH SIGILL’ SANTI IOHIS DE PARCO

52. THE PRIORY OF KIRKHAM

The Augustinian priory of Kirkham was
founded about 1130,) and was the earliest of the
three religious houses which owed their existence
to Walter Espec. In his foundation charter,?
addressed to Archbishop Thurstan and Geoffrey,
Bishop of Durham, Walter Espec records that he
had given to God and the church of the Holy
Trinity of Kirkham, and to the canons serving
God there, the whole manor of Kirkham, with
the parish church and the churches of Helmsley,
Garton, and Kirby Grindalythe, and other
property, including (in Northumberland) the
whole vill of Carham-on-Tweed, a mansura at
Wark, the whole vill of Titlington, and the
churches of Ilderton and Newton-in-Glendale
(now known as Kirknewton). As Thurstan
and Geoffrey were contemporaries in the sees of
York and Durham from 1133 to 1139, the date
of this charter is definitely fixed between those
years.

There is no reference to any son or child of
the founder,’ and no suggestion whatever in sup-
port of the legend that Walter Espec was led to
found Kirkham and his two other monasteries of
Rievaulx and Warden out of grief at the loss of
his only son by an accident. That story is told
with such definiteness of detail in a chartulary
of Rievaulx, that, were it not incidentally nega-
tived by the silence of all contemporary accounts,
including the foundation charters of the monas-
teries in question, it would almost carry a con-
viction of truth with it. The legend, as told in
the chartulary under the heading ‘Fundatio
monasteriorum de Kyrkham Ryevalx et Wardon,
&c.’,* is that Walter Espec, miles strenuus, married,

*8'The prior who caused the Chartulary with the
list of priors to be written. Confirmed 27 May
1499: York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 138.

“The last prior, confirmed 29 March 1520.
York Archiepis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 53.

' Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 207. The date there
given for the foundation, 1121, appears to be too
early. ? Ibid. 208.

3 The gifts were made with the assent of his
nephews, for the welfare of the souls of his and their
parents.

* Cott. MS. Vitell. F. 4.

HOUSES

when quite young, a certain Adelina, who bore
him a son named Walter. The son was a hand-
some youth, and greatly devoted to riding swift
horses. One day, mounting and urging his steed
beyond control, it stumbled against a small stone
cross at Frithby and threw him, breaking his
neck. The father, inconsolable at his bereave-
ment, consulted his uncle William, then rector
of Garton, at whose advice he made Christ his
heir, founding three monasteries at Kirkham,
Rievaulx, and Warden, appointing his uncle
William, who had received monastic instruction
in the house of St. Oswald, Nostell, the first
Prior of Kirkham, which he endowed to the
extent of 1,300 marks a year.© Of the founder
himself a vivid picture has been drawn by Aelred,
the third Abbot of Rievaulx, in his account of the
battle of the Standard.* He describes Walter
Espec as at that time an old man, full of days, of
quick wit, foreseeing in counsel, sober-minded in
peace, wary in war, always keeping friendship
with his companions, and faith with kings; a
tall, big man with black hair, a full beard, an
open and free countenance, with large and keen-
sighted eyes, and a voice like a trumpet. Noble
in the flesh, Aelred says, but nobler far for his
Christian piety.

The most important incident in the early his-
tory of Kirkham is undoubtedly the proposed
cession to the abbey of Rievaulx of Kirkham
itself, and a considerable amount of its property,
on the condition that the patron gave other lands
to the canons in lieu of those which were to pass
to Rievaulx. The proposal never took effect.
The document in the Rievaulx Chartulary" is
headed Cyrographum inter nos [Rievallenses| et
Kirkham. It begins: ‘These are the things
which we have conceded and given to the monks
of “ Rievalle,” for the love of God, and the well-
being of our souls, for peace, and the honour of
our prior, and at the will and desire of our
patron.” They are enumerated as ‘ Kirkham
with the church and our buildings, and our
garths, gardens, and mills, and everything in
that place except one barn . . .. Whitwell, and
Westow, and 4 carucates in Thixendale (those 4,
to wit, which our patron hitherto holds in his
possession), and a wagon, and 100 sheep of our
stock,’ and then follows the condition under
which the concession had been made, viz., ‘that

5 Dr. Atkinson rejects (Rievaulx Chartul. p. xlvy
this sum as a gross exaggeration ; but when, in 1321,
the convent returned a statement of their revenues to
the archbishop, they stated that in time of peace they
were wont to receive 1,000 marks a year from their
Northumberland property alone.

° Cited Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 209.

” Riewaulx Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), 108, no. cxlix. The
date of this document, which, as shown later on, was.
compiled within the lifetime of Walter Espec, must
be anterior to 1154, for he died asa monk of Rievaulx
on 15 March in that year. Ibid. 265.

219

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

our patron shall give us all Linton and “ Hwers-
letorp”” with all the appurtenances belonging to
the same vill.’ The chirograph then proceeds :
‘And our prior and his assistants shall build us a
church, chapter-house, dormitory, refectory, and
other houses of sufficient size, as an infirmary,
cellar, hospice, bake-house, stable, granary, barn,
and establish a good mill there, if possible, at the
least cost ; the church to be covered with shingle,
and the claustral offices thatched. The charters
and evidences of Linton, and of all our posses-
sions, shall be acquired by us. . . . Be it known
also that we shall retain with the church of
Westow the carucate of land belonging to it, and
the monks shall pay us tithes of land they may
cultivate in that parish, in Whitwell, and in the
demesne lands of our patron..... All our
moveables, when we leave Kirkham we shall
take away, that is to say crosses, chalices, books,
robes, and all church ornaments, including stained

glass windows,® for which we will make them
"white ones. One bell shall remain for them
according to our choice. Vessels, and utensils,
and necessary articles, whether at Kirkham, or
Whitwell, it shall be lawful for us to take
away. ‘This, however, is to be known, that we
will not depart from our place, or lose our prior,
until the things agreed between us are accom-
plished. If perchance within a year we shall
have changed our place, the property and rents
of our church, as they now are, shall for the
whole year be in our hands and possession, for
the acquittance of our debts. In like manner
the property and rents of Linton shall be in the
hands of the monks, for constructing our build-
ings... Be it known also, that allthe canons
and brothers of Kirkham now living shall have
the same position in the Cistercian chapter and
order as monks of that order.’

There are several points to be noted. In the
first place the concession is spoken of in the past
tense—‘ we have conceded and given’ (concessimus
et donavimus), which implies that the interchange
was very near actual accomplishment, and can
only have fallen through because some or all of
the conditions were not fulfilled. Then the
advocatus noster—our patron—must allude to
Walter Espec himself, and not, as Mr. Walbran
has surmised, Lord de Ros®; but the chief

* «Et fenestras vitreas coloratas nobis retinemus, pro
quibus illis albas faciemus.’ Riewaulx Chartul. 109.
A very notable allusion, The Cistercians rejected
stained windows.

* See Rievsulx Chartul. p. xxiv. This is clear from
the clause as to the 4 carucates in Thixendale which
it is said (Rieraulx Chartul, 108) ‘advocatus noster
adhuc tenet in manu sua.’ In what is called the
‘Secunda Fundatio’ of Kirkham, Walter Espec granted
the canons 4 carucates in Thixendale, and after his
death 4 more carucates of land there (Rievaulx
Chartul. 160). These latter are those alluded to as
suill in Walter Espec’s possession.

point is, what did the chirograph imply, and what
would have taken place if its conditions had been
carried out? A clue seems to be given in the
final clause that each canon and brother was to
have a like standing in the Cistercian chapter
and order. This can hardly mean anything else
than that it was proposed to hand over Kirkham
to Rievaulx, perhaps as a cell, or at any rate as a
Cistercian house, and that those canons and
brothers of the Augustinian order who became
Cistercians were to have the same position they
held reserved to them as monks ; while it looks as
if a new house at Linton was to be established,
where we may suppose that the dissentient canons
of Kirkham would be formed into an Augustinian
monastery. It must not be forgotten that Walter
Espec became a Cistercian monk himself, and he
may have wished that his three houses should all
be of the Cistercian order.

In 1203 Innocent III ordered that persons
presented to the Archbishop of York for institu-
tion by the Prior and convent of Kirkham should
be admitted to their churches. There had evi-
dently been some obstruction on the part of the
archbishop, but its nature, or the ground on
which it had been based, is not known.

Gregory IX decided, in 1240," on behalf of
the Prior and convent of Kirkham, that the
acquisitions of lands made by the Cistercians within
the parishes belonging to Kirkham were not in
any way to prejudice their right to the tithes.

In 1253,” when the chapel in the castle of
Helmsley was dedicated by the Bishop of
Whithern, the prior and convent protested against
it as an infringement of the rights of their church
of Helmsley, given them by their founder. Arch-
bishop Giffard, on 19 May 1269,'* commissioned
Magr. Philip de Staunton, if he saw fit on visiting
Kirkham, to receive the resignation of the prior,
which the archbishop had deferred doing. The
prior, who had pleaded his feeble state, was
probably Hugh de Beverley, mentioned as prior in
1268,

On 4 February 1279-80 “ Archbishop Wick-
wane held a visitation, and issued a series of
injunctions. In the first place he ordered that
laymen and outsiders were on noaccount to enter
the infirmary, except doctors and others whose
duty was to look after the sick. ‘The prior and
sub-prior were several times in the year to have
the carols of the canons in the cloister and else-
where opened in their presence and their con-
tents shown to them. No one was to accept
garments (indumenta) or other things, as the gift
of any person, without the special leave of the
president, and then such were to be delivered,
not to the recipient, but wisely and discreetly by
the president to some one else. Fools, low

” Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 15. " Ibid. 187.

” Archbp. Gray’s Reg. 119 n.
*% Archop. Giffard’s Reg. 131.
“York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 1174.

220

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

buffoons, and tramps were firmly forbidden access
to the refectory. The sick were to be properly
tended. None of the canons were in future to
go to the infirmary to warm themselves. The
alms were to be given to the poor, and not tothe
stipendiaries of the house, as had hitherto been
done. No eatables were to be transferred else-
where from the refectory.

The prior was enjoined to correct the excesses
of his brethren more often and quickly. The
doors were to be better guarded from the access
of useless and unworthy persons. The canons
and conversi were to be distinguished according to
the due requirement of their grade, and juniors
were not to be placed over their betters. Be-
coming equality in necessary matters according
to the rule was to be observed towards every-
one.

The servitors and attendants of the house were
not to burden the monastery with their children
or relations, but such were to be removed at once.
The archbishop forbade all strife and noise in
beginning proses and chants. The canons were
forbidden after compline, for the sake of drink~-
ing, or under any pretext of unbecoming levity,
to visit guests or friends, or to go to them, ex-
cept they had a necessary or useful reason for
doing so, and then only with the leave of the
president.” Drinking with guests or friends in
the absence of the prior was altogether prohibited.
The prior was to hear the confession of each at
least once in the year. The canons, moreover, were
not to visit the houses of nuns or other suspected
places.

In 131418 Archbishop Greenfield issued a
series of injunctions as the sequel of a visitation
held on Wednesday after Trinity Sunday. ‘The
defects in the chapter-house, dormitory, and
infirmary were to be repaired as soon as possible.
As certain of the secular servants of the house
did not show proper deference to the canons, the
prior was ordered to correct and chastise such
servants, and if any were incorrigible or rebel-
lious, they were to be discharged.

As certain of the cellarers of the house claimed
to have a perpetuity in their office, the archbishop
ordered that no cellarer should hold office for more
than two years, and this on condition that he be-
haved well. If at the end of two years he was
found to have been useful and apt for his office, he
might be re-elected by the prior and five or six
of the seniors. When the prior found a cellarer
unfit for the office he was to be removed by the
prior and another appointed without delay. As
the monastery was heavily in debt, all were en-
joined to strict moderation.

% There is a letter (23 July 1289) to the Bishop
of Norwich as to a canon of Kirkham who was a
fugitive from the house, and ‘in vestra civitate depre-
hensum’; Reg. Romanus, fol. 624.

York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 100.

In 1318 Archbishop Melton held a visitation
of Kirkham. He ordered Archbishop Green-
field’s decretum and his own to be read weekly
every Wednesday and Friday. The injunctions
are of a general character, and the grave faults
the archbishop would deal with separately later.
They do not appear to be recorded.

On 10 November 132178 John de Jarum
{or Yarm] was elected prior in succession to
Robert de Veteri Burgo, who had died on Sunday
before the feast of SS. Simon and Jude (28 Oc-
tober 1321). According to an entry in the
Register headed Status Domus de Kirkham, the
monastery was then in debt to the amount of
£843 15s. ghd. of borrowed money. It was
burdened at the same date with {12 a year in
pensions, there were also twenty-two corrodies,
two of which had been sold in the time of Prior
William, four in the time of Prior John, and
sixteen in the time of Prior Robert.

The expenses of the house from the death of
Prior Robert to the installation of Prior John on
Wednesday the feast of St. Katherine (25 No-
vember) had amounted to £140 r1os., which had
been borrowed. Moreover, much would have
to be bought in the way of wheat, malt, peas,
oats, as well as provender for horses, and forty
oxen for ploughing would have to be purchased
at 135. 4d. each, and thirty horses (at 20s. each).
The total debts, in addition to the money for
the necessaries above mentioned, amounted to
£1,089 125. 5d., besides the twenty-two corro-
dies, estimated at £73 65. 8d. a year.

A memorandum is added, that in time of peace
the priory received 1,000 marks of silver annually
from its rents in Northumberland, but had
received nothing from that source for the past
seven years.

In 1331! a serious charge was brought against
Prior John de Jarum that he had committed
adultery with Clemencia, wife of Thomas de
Boulton, kt. The archbishop summoned him to
appear in the cathedral church on Thursday after
the feast of Pentecost and answer the charge.
The prior duly appeared, but none of his accu-
sers responded to the summons. The archbishop
thereupon pronounced sentence in favour of the
prior, and restored him fame pristine, as it is
expressed.

Reports of strife between the prior and canons
having reached the ears of Archbishop Thoresby
in 1353,°° a commission of inquiry was issued on
23 August 1353.

In 1357”! the financial state of the house was
very bad. It owed £1,000, much the same sum
as it had owed thirty years before, and from a
letter addressed by the archbishop to the prior as
to the desolabilis status of the house, it would

17 Tbid. Melton, fol. 2694. 8 Ibid. fol. 285-7.
19 Ibid. fol. 3145. ” Tbid. Thoresby, fol. 21.
" Ibid. fol. 1794.

221

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

appear that the only means of relieving the stress
which prevented the priory from supporting the
full number of its canons and maintaining due
hospitality, was to send some of the canons for a
time to other houses of the same order, and
licence to do this was conceded by the arch-
bishop.

A letter from the archbishop, dated 10 April
1372,” refers to the case of John Strother, a
canon who, at the archbishop’s recent visitation,
stated that he had been compelled by threats by
his father, William Strother, to make his profes-
sion as a canon of the house against his will.
He sought licence from the archbishop to visit
the apostolic see and obtain a release from his
vows. This the archbishop granted.

In 138078 the house contained the prior and
sixteen canons. The clear income of the house
in the Valor Ecclestasticus is reckoned at
£269 55. od."

Burton * has, in alphabetical order, a list of
the places where the priory held property. The
house was surrendered 8 December 1539 by
John Kildwick and seventeen canons.

Priors oF KIRKHAM

William, first prior, c. 113077

D. or O., c. 1134.8

Wallevus otherwise Waltheof, c. 1140

Geoffrey, between 1147 and 1153

William (de Muschamp), occurs c, 1191-2

Walter, occurs c. 1195 *#

Drogo, occurs c. 1195-9

Andrew, occurs c. 1200-10 *

Walter, occurs before 1226 *

William, occurs 1219-28 *

Richard, occurs 1235-46 *

Roger, occurs 1252 ”

Hugh de Beverley, occurs 1258,°" 1268 *

William de Wetwang, occurs 1304 *

John de Elveley, confirmed 1304," resigned
1310%

”® York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 196.
3 Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 63, no. 12.
™* Valor Eccl. v, 103-4; Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 208.

** Burton, Alen. Ebor. 374-7. © Ibid. 377.
7 Rievaulx Chartul. 171 n.
*6 Tbid. * Thid. * Tbid.

*' Burton, Mon. Ebor. 377 0. ; Rievaulx Chartul. 26.

8 Cott. MS. Claud. D. xi, fol. 229.

3? Burton, Mon. Ebor. 377 n.

83 B.M. Harl. Chart. 111, C. 21.

4 Rievaulx Chartul. 172 n.

38 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 101.

8 Thid. 37 Thid.

57a Cott. MS. Nero, D. iii, fol. 30, 32 d.

% Dugdale, Mon. Angi vi, 209, no. iv; Baildon,
Mon. Notes, i, 101.

5° York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 41. ‘° Ibid.

“ Ibid. Greenfield, fol. 1174. In Recs. of Northern
Convocation (Surt. Soc.), §8, one ‘Gerard of Burton’
is named as Prior of Kirkham, who was present at the

Robert de Veteri Burgo, 1310," died 1321

John de Jarum, 1321," died 1333"

Adam de Wartria, 1333," died 1349 “

John de Hertelpole, 1349, resigned 1362-3 *”

William de Driffield, elected Feb. 1362-3,”
died 1367 *

John de Bridlington (sub-prior), elected 1367

John de Helmeslay, elected 1398, died
1408

Richard de Ottelay, elected 1408 ©

William Frithby, died 1457

Nicholas Naburne (sub-prior), elected 1457,”
died 1462 8

Thomas Irton, elected 1462 ©

William Perle, succ. 1470,” died 1504 ®

Thomas Bowtre, appointed (by lapse) 25 Sep-
tember 1504 °

John Kildwick, elected 1518 ©

The seal,®* used as early as 1191, is a large
vesica, 3fin. by 1fin., showing our Lord in
Majesty, with the legend :—

SIGILLVM SANCTE TRINITATIS DE CHIRCAM

The 13th-century prior’s seal ® isa vesica 23 in.
by 1} in., of similar but more elaborate design,
having the prior kneeling in the base between
two water bougets. On either side of the
majesty is a water bouget between two Cathe-
rine wheels, which devices refer to Walter Espec,
the founder, who bore arms of three Catherine
wheels, and to Lord de Ros, in whose honour
the house had for arms three water bougets with
a crozier in pale over all. Of the legend there
remains :—

. PRIORIS DE KIRKEHAM

Provincial Council at York in 1311-12, which dealt
with the Templars, and, it is added with a (?), ‘executed
after the Northern Rebellion of 1337.’ Immediately
after his name comes that of Robert Oldburg, ¢ prior
of Kirkham,’ who, it is suggested, was Prior of
Warter. There is, however, no hiatus in the list of
Priors of Kirkham about this time which could be
filled by ¢‘ Gerard of Burton.’

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 1224.

* Ibid. Melton, fol. 285.

* Ibid. fol. 325.

“ Thid. fol. 320.

* Thid. fol. 320.
7 Ibid. Zouch, fol. 2025.

” Ibid. “Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 208.
% Tbid. 5! Ibid. fol. 218.
* Thid. 53 Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 230.

4 Thid. fol. 2954. % Ibid. 2956.

% Ibid. W. Booth, fol. 110d. 7 Ibid.

59 Tbid. fol. 1184. * Thid. fol. 1184, 119.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 534.

"Ibid. Wolsey, fol. 394.

® The last prior. He died 1552. ‘John Kil-
wyk lait prior of Kirkham, obijt circa primum diem
Maij hec anno sexto Regis nunc, and his pension by
yere £50.’ Exch. K.R. Accts. (P.R.O.), bdle. 76,
no. 23.

* Cat. of Seah, B.M. 3360 ; Cott. Chart. v, 13.

* Ibid. 3363, lxxiv, 71.

222

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

53. THE PRIORY OF MARTON

The priory of Marton was founded, as a double
house of Augustinian canons and nuns, by
Bertram de Bulmer, who lived at the end of the
reign of Stephen and the beginning of that of
Henry IJ.1| The nuns did not remain there
long, but moved to Molseby (or Moxby, as it is
now called, a mile and a half from Marton) and
there formed an independent establishment on
land given them by Henry II? Henry de
Nevill,® grandson of the founder, confirmed his
ancestor’s grant of the vill of Marton with its
church and other gifts of land by Richard de
Runtcliffe and Roger de Punchardune. Henry
Nevill further gave to the canons of St. Mary of
Marton his manor of Woodhouse,‘ except two
bovates of land in Appletreewick, which he
intended to give to the nuns of Monkton.

From some unknown donor the canons
obtained the church of Sheriff Hutton,® and in
1322 Archbishop Melton ordained a vicarage in
the church, ordering, inter ala, that the canons
were to pay out of its revenues the large
annual sum of 20 marks to the abbey of St.
Mary, York. The canons had also the church
of Sutton, in which Archbishop Walter Gray
ordained a vicarage in 1227.°

The priory of Marton was in financial straits
in 1280,’ when Archbishop Wickwane directed
that a complete statement of the temporalities
of the house should be compiled for the Prior of
Warter and Roger the archbishop’s chaplain,
who were to report to the archbishop. The
prior was to retain the name and office, as such,
under his vow of obedience till the archbishop
ordered otherwise. On 2 August® the arch-
bishop accepted the resignation of Walter, the
prior, on account of age and decrepitude, and ‘ad
quietam tuam et augmentum contemplacionis,’
and on the same date wrote to R. de Nevill, the
patron, that on account of the poverty of the priory
he was promoting Brother Gregory de Lesset as
prior, and in the formal letter to Gregory de
Lesset, canon of Newburgh, appointing him
‘Prior of Marton, dated 4 August, the appoint-
ment is said to be made with the consent of the
patron and of all the canons of the house. A
concurrent letter was sent to the Prior and
convent of Newburgh, asking that Gregory de
Lesset might be released from the office of sub-
prior of that house, and allowed to go as prior to
Marton. Thearchbishop, on 11 August, made a

1 Burton, Mon. Ebor. 265.

? Ibid. 268. The nearness of Moxby to Marton
seems to suggest that an entire separation of the two
was not originally intended.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 199, no. ii.

‘ Ibid. no. iii.

5 Burton, Mon Ebor. 266. § Thid.

7 York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 12 d., 115.

® Ibid, fol. 13, 115 d.

public declaration ® that he had only made this
appointment under the pressure of necessity, and
that his action was not to be to the prejudice in
future of the priory or its patron. A few
months later (on 13 December 1281 ™) the arch-
bishop wrote to the prior and convent that,
having beheld with paternal pity the almost
irreparable ruin to which they and their house
had been brought by their wantonness and
demerits, he had appointed Thomas, Archdeacon
of Cleveland, to carry into effect the ordinances
made for the house as a result of a recent visita-
tation. Subsequently ! he commanded the prior
and convent to send certain of their less useful
brethren to religious houses in which holy
religion waxed more strongly. He had also sent
the Prior of Newburgh to their house, and,
according to the prior’s arrangement, the arch-
bishop directed that the canons were to send
Brothers John de Esyngwald and Laurence to
other religious houses, to be named by the arch-
bishop. In a letter to the Prior and convent of
Newburgh ” the archbishop referred to the refor-
mation of the monastery of Marton. He had
learnt that its temporalities had almost come to
an end; religious honesty was undone, the
observance of the rule was shamelessly banished,
and troubled businesses had taken the place of
pious zeal. He saw how honest and pleasing to
God was the behaviour of the congregation of
Newburgh, and on that account he ordered them
to send certain wise and honest of their number
to Marton, at the nomination of the prior of
that house, to the assistance and relief of Marton.
No doubt Gregory de Lesset, so recently sub-
prior of Newburgh, wished to be strengthened in
his work of reformation at Marton by the help
of some of his late brethren at Newburgh.

Laurence, one of the two canons of Marton
who were to be sent away, must have been
exceptionally troublesome, for the archbishop,
addressing on § August 1283 1% the Priors of
Nostell and Newburgh, presidents of the general
chapter of canons regular in the province of
York, stated that at the visitation of Marton the
congregation of his brethren there could not
submit to his reprobate and perverse behaviour
among them, and that the prior had no safe
place there in which to shut him up, especially
as no iron bolt could resist him, but he loosened
it as he would, and got out. The archbishop
asked them to find some safe place of detention,
that he might undergo salutary penance.

In 1286 * Gregory de Lesset left Marton and
returnedto Newburgh. During his rule at Marton
he seems to have obtained from that house a manor
in Craven, and Archbishop Romanus ordered
that this was to be restored to Marton, and that
Gregory was to give up the writings he had about

9 Tbid. 10 Ibid. fol. 35 d., 138.
1 Thid. fol. 35 d. ” Tid,
18 Tbid. fol. 138 d. ™“ Ibid. Romanus, fol. 50 d.

223

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

it to the Prior of Marton. If, however, he had
contracted any reasonable debts on account of it,
the Prior of Marton was to answer for them, and
satisfy the creditors. The Prior and convent of
Marton were to pay to Newburgh, as long as
Gregory lived, a yearly sum of 40s., and half of
this the Prior of Newburgh, at his discretion,
was to give as a solace to Gregory, and the other
half was to be for the general use of Newburgh.
If, however, Marton had secretly or openly
sustained any kind of charge by Gregory’s action,
then the whole sum was to go to the house of
Newburgh, but this only if he were properly con-
victed or confessed. These directions were con-
veyed to Marton and Newburgh by similar
letters, mutatis mutandis, dated 11 October 1286."
There is no record of the election of Gregory
de Lesset’s successor, but his name transpires a
year later, when, on 27 October 1287, the arch-
bishop issued a mandate to the sub-prior and
convent of Marton to elect a prior in succession
to Brother John de Wylton, resigned.1® Their
choice fell on William de Bulmer, the sub-prior,
but the archbishop quashed the election ‘non vicio
persone sed forme,’ and eventually appointed John
de Lund,” canon of Bolton. Although no fault
was then found with William de Bulmer, he got
into serious trouble at a later period, but in what
way is not said. In 1308 18 Archbishop Green-
field sent him to Drax, to undergo a specified
penance, and Marton was to pay 4 marks
annually for his maintenance there. In 1314 1°
Archbishop Greenfield held a visitation of
Marton, and issued injunctions of a_ general
character, almost identical with others sent to
Newburgh at the same time. The archbishop
had, however, to deal with some serious cases of
immorality. Alan de Shirburn, one of the
canons, had confessed to incontinence with
Joan daughter of Walter de Cartwright, and
Juliana wife of William ‘le Mazun’ of York,
living in Bootham, and with Maud Bunde of
Stillington. The archbishop enjoined the fol-
lowing penance: he was to keep convent in
cloister, quire, dormitory and refectory con-
tinuously, unless sick or otherwise legitimately
prevented. He was not to go outside the
precincts of the monastery, or the outer door,
except in honest company and with the licence
of the president. He was to hold no office in
the monastery, without special licence. Every
day he was to say a nocturn of the psalter. Each
Wednesday and Friday he was to say the seven
penitential psalms with the litany, humbly and
devoutly prostrated before the altar of the Blessed
Virgin, and on those days he was to fast on bread,
ale, and vegetables. Once a week, at least, he
was to confess his sins humbly and devoutly. He

'® York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 50 d.
Ibid. fol. 51. 7 Tbid.
* Ibid. Greenfield, fol. god. * Ibid. fol. 994.

was not to speak to any woman, without the
licence of the president, who was to hear what
was said. The prior was to tell Brother Stephen
of this, and make him a copy of the penance,
and also notify the archbishop how Alan de
Shirburn performed what was enjoined him.
Brother Stephen, who was to have a copy of the
penance, was Stephen de Langetoft, another
canon, who had owned at the visitation to the
vice of incontinence with Alice de Hareworth,
dwelling at Marton, and with Agnes de Hoby.
He was to perform the same penance as Alan de
Shirburn.

Another misdoer was Brother Roger de
Scameston, a conversus of the house, who con-
fessed to misconduct of the same kind with
Ellen de Westmorland living at Brandsby, with
Beatrix del Calgarth wife of John de Ferling-
ton, Eda Genne of Marton, Maud Scot of
Menersley, and Beatrix Baa, relict of Robert le
Bakester of Stillington. The penance imposed
on him was that every Wednesday he was to
fast on bread, ale, and vegetables, and every
Friday on bread and water, and in no manner
whatever was to go outside the precincts of the
monastery. Every Wednesday and Friday he
was to receive a discipline from the president.
Every day before the altar of the Blessed Virgin,
fasting, he was to ‘say, fifty times, the Lord’s
Prayer with the Salutation of the Blessed Mary,
humbly and devoutly. Once a week, at least,
he was to confess his sins. He was not to speak
to any woman, nor was he to be placed in any
office until the archbishop saw fit to deal other-
wise with him,

On 16 June 1304” Archbishop Corbridge
issued a commission to William de Wirkesall to
go to Marton and correct faults discovered at a
recent visitation, but there is nothing said as to
what was amiss.

Archbishop Melton notified the house on
5 May 1318” of his intention to visit it, andon
15 June the prior, Simon de Branby, resigned.
The sub-prior and canons elected no other as
their prior than Alan de Shirburn, who had so
grievously misbehaved only four years before.
The archbishop quashed the election on the
ground of irregularity, and appointed a canon of
Bridlington, Henry de Melkingthorp, and at the
same time commissioned Roger de Heslington,
official of the court of York, and John de
Hemingburgh, dean of Christianity, to correct
the faults disclosed at the visitation.2 A few
days later (27 July **) the archbishop wrote to the
Prior of Bridlington to send Robert de Scar-
brough and Stephen de Snayth, two of his
canons, as he had appointed them sub-prior and
cellarer, respectively, of Marton, in order to

* Ibid. Corbridge, fol. 29.
7 Ibid. Melton, fol. 227.

7” Tbid. fol. 228. ™ Thid. fol. 269.

224

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

correct the abuses of that house. The Prior of
Bridlington was to take John de Maltby and
Stephen de Langetoft from Marton. All points
tocontinued disorder and misrule at Marton, and
Melton wasnot the man to treat lightly such a con-
dition of affairs. Henryde Melkingthorp resigned
in 1321, and the canons elected Robert de Tick-
hill, one of their number, to succeed him. This
election the archbishop also quashed, but appointed
Robert de Tickhill jure devoluto, provision being
made for Melkingthorp.* The following year,
however, witnessed the dispersion of the canons
of Marton propter destruccionem Scotorum. In a
letter of 3 November 1322* to the Prior and
convent of Bridlington, the archbishop related
that owing to the recent hostile incursion of the
Scots the monastery of Marton was devastated, its
animalsand property despoiled, its villages, manors,
and estates, as it were, devoured by fire, so much so,
that it could not support the college of canons
serving God there. He therefore sent to
Bridlington Brothers Alan de Shirburn and John
de Soureby. At the same time similar letters
were sent to Warter for Simon de Branby, to
Drax for William de Craven, to Thurgarton for
John de Malteby, to Shelford for Stephen de
Langetoft, and to Newstead in Shirwood for
Ingram de Semer, canons of Marton. This
accounts for seven of the members, and apparently
the prior, sub-prior, and cellarer, who are not
named, continued at or near the spot, for on
18 November the archbishop granted licence
quibusdam canonicis dicte domus de Marton to
remain in asuitable and honest place, and to say
mass and divine offices, in places legitimately set
apart for that purpose. No doubt they remained
in order to superintend the reconstruction of
their house, and the repairing of the mischief
done by the Scots.

On 17 July 135178 William de Wake-
field, one of the canons professed in the house,
was found guilty of divers crimes, excesses, and
errors which are not named. He was then,
according to the rules of the order, imprisoned,
and Archbishop Zouch ordered that he was to
be deprived of any office he held in the house,
and care was to be taken lest his crimes did harm
to others. He was not to receive or send
letters, and other restrictions were placed upon
him.

The prior and canons seem to have been ready
to lend a willing ear quite at the last to the
royal commissioners, and quit their habit volun-
tarily, before they were compelled to do so.
According to the Valor LEeclesiasticus the clear
annual revenue was £151 55. 44.77 In 1527 it
was returned as £131 16s. 64.78

* York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 236.
* Tbid. fol. 240. © Ibid. Zouch, fol. 171.

” Valor Eccl. v, 93-4.
* Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 64, no. 303. (Return
made by Brian Higdon.)
3 225

In the account of Laurence Beckwith for a
year from Michaelmas 1535,” the receipts from
Marton amount to £219 55. 8d., and Thomas
Godson, the late prior, is named as being rector
of Sheriff Hutton. This was evidently a sine-
cure appointment, as Richard Moreton is else-
where spoken of as receiving £10 as perpetual
vicar of Sheriff Hutton. Two of the canons,
George Burgh and George Sutton, had bought
cattle from the monastery before the suppression,
and ‘Mr.’ George Davy, whom ‘Thomas
Yodson had succeeded as prior in 1531, was
still alive. He had, on his resignation, received
under the common seal of the house a yearly
pension for life of £13 65. 8d. by equal portions
on the feasts of St. Martin and Pentecost at the
altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the conven-
tual church, between the hours of ten o’clock
and noon. The house was formally ‘sup-
pressed ’ on 19 May 1536, when Thomas Yodson
was paid £25 135. 4d. for his expenses with
his servants in London from 2 March to 4 May,
with certain legal charges, and his expenses
going and returning. George Sutton, one of
the canons, received {4 for riding to London,
at the order of the visitors, stopping there, and
returning. Eight canons, pro vadiis, received
20s. each from 1 March to 4 May. ‘There
were thirty-seven servants then in the employ-
ment of the house. The house was finally
surrendered by the prior and fifteen canons on
g February 1535-6, and on 3 March 1535-6
Thomas Barton delivered to Cromwell a letter
from the Prior of Marton. If the prior left the
place, Barton wished to have it, as the house was
near where he was born, and his ancestors were
benefactors to it. It was well wooded and not
worth less than £200.

Priors oF Marton

Herniseus, occurs before 1181 3!

Henry, occurs 1203, 12278

Richard, occurs 1235 #4

Simon, occurs 1238 *

John, occurs 1252 *

Walter, resigned 1280 *7

Gregory de Lesset (sub-prior of Newburgh),
appointed 1280, resigned 1286 *

John de Wylton, elected 1286,
October 1287 *°

® Aug. Views of Accts. (P.R.O.), 17.

°° L. and P. Hen. VILL, viii, 322.

*| Whitby Chartul. 185. (He occurs as a witness to
a deed with Cuthbert, Prior of Guisborough, who had
ceased to be prior of that house before 1181.)

* B.M. Healaugh Chartulary (Cott. MS. Vesp.
A. iv), fol. 74.

88 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 128.

* Egerton MS. 2823, fol. 43.

5° Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 128.

*” York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 13, 11 54.

58 Ibid. * Ibid. Romanus, fol. 50d.

“ Ibid. fol. 51.

resigned

“ Tbid.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

John de Lund, appointed 1287 *

Alan de Morton, confirmed December 1304 *

Simon de Brandby, succ. 1307," resigned
1318 #

Henry de Melkingthorp, appointed 1318,‘
resigned 1321 *

Robert de Tickhill, succ. 1321*

William de Craven, confirmed 1340,** died
1344”

Hugh de Rickhall, 1344, died 1349 *

John de Thresk, 1349,” resigned 1357 ©

Robert, occurs 1369 ™

William, occurs 1370,*° Easter 1371 **

Robert de Hoton, occurs Trinity 1371,
1388 ®

Robert de Stillington, occurs 1403 °°

John de Goldsborough, occurs 1436 ©

Robert Cave, resigned 1443

Henry Rayne, confirmed 1443 @

Christopher Latoner, confirmed 1506 ®

John Caterik, confirmed 1519 “

George Davy, resigned 1531 ©

Thomas Yodson, confirmed 7 June 1531 ©
(last prior)

The 13th-century seal ® of the chapter is
circular, 2in. in diameter, showing our Lady
seated in a throne between the sun and moon.
The legend is :—

SIGILL’ CAPITVLI SCE MARIE DE MARTONE

Henry, the second prior, sealed with a vesica,®

t}in. by 14 in., having a figure of himself stand-
ing, with the legend :—

HH SIGIL’ HENRICI PRIORIS DE MARTV

The seal ® of Prior John de Thresk (1349-
1357) is a vesica, rf in. by 1} in., with our
I.ady crowned and seated with the Child, and
the prior kneeling below. The legend ran :—

s’ IOH’IS DE THRESKE PRIORIS DE MARTYN

“York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 51.

“ Thid. sed. vac. fol. 384.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 227.

“ Ibid. fol. 2274. “ Ibid. fol. 2364.

“ Ibid. fol. 236. “ Tbid. sed. vac. fol. 694,

Ibid. 5! Tbid. fol. 1654. ** Ibid.

8 Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. vi, 198. A commission for
the election of a prior was issued 1 Dec. 1357, but no
names are mentioned ; York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby,

fol. 174.
4 Baildon, Mon. Noves, 1, 128.
8° Thid. Ibid. 57 Tbid. * Tbid.
§° Baildon’s MS. Notes.
© Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. vi, 198.
§ York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 203. ™ Ibid.

Ibid. Savage, fol. 69. (The name is written
Laton’ or Latov’, indicating Latoner or Latover.)

* Thid. Wolsey, fol. 48.

® Ibid. fol. 619. * Ibid.

* Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3620, \xxiv, 79.

® Ibid. 3621, lxxiv, 80. ® Thid. 3622, lxxiv, 82.

54. THE PRIORY OF NEWBURGH

Roger de Mowbray in 11451 gave to God
and the church of St. Mary ‘de Novo-Burgo,’
and the canons there serving God, the site itself
and all the east part of ‘Cukewald’ (Coxwold)
beyond the fishpond (vivarium), the church of
St. Mary of Hood, with the land and wood
under the adjoining hills, as the monks of Byland
had formerly possessed it? Also the church
of Coxwold, with its subordinate chapels, viz. :
Kilburn, Thirkleby, and Silton, the church
of Tresc (Thirsk), together with the chapel of
St. James. Robert de Mowbray also granted
the canons and their men who dwelt in Thirsk
all the liberties and privileges which his bur-
gesses possessed in the burgh, of buying and sell-
ing in the market-place and outside it free of
toll and stallage.

Besides these gifts Robert de Mowbray con-
firmed the donation of the church of Welburn
with 6 bovates, and the valley where the church
stood with the chapel of Wombleton,® and the
churches of Kirby in Ryedale (Kirkby Moor-
side), Kirby near Boroughbridge (Kirby Hill),
and Cundall with their endowment lands.
Nigel 4 the son of the founder, and William the
grandson, confirmed these and other gifts.

By a separate charter Roger de Mowbray’
granted to the canons of Newburgh the churches
of Masham, Kirkby Malzeard, ‘ Landeford,’
Haxey, Owston, ‘Appewrda,’ and Belton;
Samson de Albini, to whom Nigel, Roger de
Mowbray’s father, had given them, assentiente
pariter et donante. To this grant Roger, Abbot
of Byland, was one of the witnesses. Samson
de Albini® made a separate grant of the churches
in question to Augustine, prior of the church of
St. Mary of Newburgh, with certain conditions.

A further grant’ was made by Roger de
Mowbray for the soul of his father Nigel, his
mother Gundreda, his own soul, and that of
Adeliz his wife, to God, ‘Sanctae Marie de Insula
desubtus Hode,’ and to Augustine the prior, and
the canons serving God there, in perpetual alms,
of the church of St. Andrew in York, ‘quae est
ultra fossam in Fischergata.’, Among the witnesses
to this charter were William the dean and the
chapter of York, and Samson de Albini.

The priory of Newburgh was peopled from
Bridlington, and the canons who came for that
purpose at first settled at Hood, which had been
vacated by the monks of Byland. This latter
grant of Roger de Mowbray would seem to have
been made to the canons while settled at Hood,

? Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 317.

* Ibid. 318, no. i.

> The church of Welburn has become extinct, as
well as its dependent chapel of Wombleton.

“ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 318, no. ii.

§ Ibid. 319, no. iii. ® Ibid. no. iv.

"Ibid. 320, no. v.

226

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

and before they moved to Newburgh, when
Hood became a cell of that house.

There is interpolated in Archbishop Giffard’s
register ® an undated sentence of deposition, pro-
nounced by his predecessor, Godfrey de Ludham
(1258-64), against a prior of Newburgh, whose
name, unfortunately, is not given. It is not
improbable, however, that Prior John, whose
name occurs in 1252-3, may have been the
prior in question. Whoever the prior was whom
the archbishop deprived, his faults, as recorded
in the sentence, stamp him as a very bad ruler.
He did not, it is related, correct the brethren
equitably, but excused some and detestably made
known the private confessions and penances of
others. Of his own initiative he imputed crimes
to others, and had entered into a conspiracy
against the archbishop’s visitation of the house.
He had made the brethren take a wicked oath
not to tell the archbishop the things that needed
correction, and had forbidden them, under threat
of excommunication, to reveal matters to the
archbishop. Although he took a corporal oath
that he would reveal all, except secret faults,
many faults that were not secret, though re-
peatedly asked, he refused to reveal. He was

thus a perjured man, besides being a waster of ©

the goods of the church, keeping an extravagant
and superfluous household. For these, and
many other faults concerning which the arch-
bishop was silent, he decreed him removed from
the rule of the priory. ‘The brethren were ab-
solved from obedience to him, and directed to
provide the monastery with a new prior.

On 22 June 1259° Pope Alexander IV
granted an indulgence to the Prior and Augus-
tinian convent of Newburgh, that they might
cause those of their churches and chapels in
which vicars had not been appointed to be
served, as heretofore, by their chaplains, and that
vicarages should not be taxed, or perpetual vicars
appointed against their will, notwithstanding any
contrary indult granted to the archbishop.

On 18 September 12751? Archbishop Giffard
held a visitation of Newburgh, when it was
found that the monastery was in debt to no less
an amount than £737 16s. 10d. A certain
camera had been uselessly built apud Fresch.™
No other buildings were to be constructed with-
out the assent of the wiser and older of the
convent, and the necessary works of the great
house were to be preferred. ‘The prior was too
lenient with the obedientiaries, and was ordered
to be more strict. The sub-prior was easily pro-
voked, he was to keep his temper under pain of
removal from office. ‘The cellarer was dealing
in horses as merchants did, which was incon-
gruous with religion. He was not to do so,

® Archbishop Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 216.

® Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 365.

1 An evident error for Tresc, otherwise Thirsk.

under pain of removal from office, as in com-
merce between buyer and seller it was difficult
to avoid sin. This inhibition was extended to
all obedientiaries. The cellarer did not speak
civilly to his brethren or to those outside, as he
should, that the house might obtain the favour
of many. Under pain aforesaid, he was to con-
duct himself with gentleness and courtesy. The
custos of the fabric did not render accounts of
his expenses, either beyond the sea’ or at home,
nor did he conduct himself properly in his office.
When he had rendered his account the office was
to be given within a month to some one else who
was able to conduct it. The gardener, who
was too much given to roving about, and did
not do his work as he should, was to be removed
within fifteen days and another appointed. There
were gossipings among the brethren, and laymen
and seculars were too often about the chamber
of the late prior, which was not seemly. Such
offences were to stop, and none were to go to
the ex-prior’s chamber without the licence of
the prior or sub-prior.

Archbishop Wickwane held a visitation of the
priory on 16 February 1279-80,'* when the
following correcciones were made: All were to
obey their prior honestly, and no one was to
sham illness, nor was such a one by any means
to be admitted to the infirmary, but rather as a
deceiver he was to be expelled and punished.

No one, after compline, was to go into the
cloister for ribaldry or drinking, and if any one
visited a guest or friend, with the leave of the
president, he was not to eat or drink there. The
prior, taking with him the sub-prior, was four
times a year to examine all the chests and carols,
lest the poison of private ownership should defile
any one in the sight of God.

The refectory-alms, and those of the whole
monastery, were to be distributed ‘ in usus ipsius
Dei vivi’ and the poor, and not unlawfully inter-
cepted. If any one, at lauds or matins, was
negligently silent, he was to be suspended at
once, and expelled from the consort [of the
others] until he repented. The original and
full state of the prior was restored, his coadjutors
being removed, provided the prior took counsel
of the convent and was active in resisting rebels
and dangers,

Those were to be preferred for the schools
and offices who would fully instruct in divine
service, and discreet guardians of good fame and
conversation were to be deputed for the manage-
ment of the property and the granges. Obedi-
entiaries who dimitted office were not to keep
anything. All the convent were to see that
Divine service was celebrated distinctly, and that
every letter to be sealed in full congregation of
the convent was openly and publicly sealed,

12 <Tn partibus transmarinis.’
* York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 12,

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The keeping of useless or wasteful servants,
and also of a superfluity of dogs, was strictly pro-
hibited. No woman was to be received as guest
except the honourable wife of the patron, who,
for one night only, might stop at the monastery.
No one was to receive payments or gifts without
the consent of the president, and then was not
to keep such himself, but they were to be assigned
to common use by the prior or president. Hunt-
ing, moreover, on the part of the canons and
unlawful outings were wholly forbidden, and the
doors and exits of the monastery were to be
better guarded than they had been. William de
Foxholes, Robert Wrot, William de Endreby,
and Anselm de Pontefracto, whose morals and
deeds had hitherto been discordant with the
rule, were committed by the archbishop for
correction to the prior and sub-prior.

A certain Roger, a conversus of the house, had,
to the scandal of the order, left it. Archbishop
Romanus, on 26 May 1286," wrote to the prior
to receive him back to his habit again. He was,
no doubt, the same as Roger de Soureby, con-
cerning whom the archbishop in his decretum of
11 October of the same year!® (which deals
mainly with Marton),’® directed that as he was
penitent he was to be admitted to the house, but
sent to reside at Hood.

On 29 December 1292,!” the archbishop
ordered the public excommunication of Robert
de Wetwang, who, nineteen years before, had
entered Newburgh as an Augustinian canon, and
was at the time an apostate, wandering about to
the great peril of his soul and the scandal of the
people, leading a very dissolute life.

On 28 September 13128 Archbishop Green-
field commissioned two of his clerks to receive
the purgation of the Prior of Newburgh, who
stood charged with certain unspecified acts of
incontinence. Two years later the archbishop
wrote (3 April 1314) to the prior, that during
a recent visitation held in the city of York, a
canon of Newburgh, John de Baggeby, had
sinned carnally with a certain Alice de Hextil-
desham, and had confessed his sin. “The arch-
bishop sent him to the prior to be punished.

On Monday after the Translation of St. Thomas
the Martyr in the same year the archbishop
held a visitation of Newburgh, on which he sent
a decretum to the prior and canons, couched in
terms common to such documents, and throwing
little light on its internal affairs, except that the
house was heavily in debt and burdened by
pensions and liveries.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 50.

8 Thid. fol. 540.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 54.

8 Ibid. Greenfield, 11, fol. 25.

” Tbid. fol. 98. ® Ibid. fol. gg.

In May 1318! a visitation of Newburgh was
held for Archbishop Melton, who issued a long
series of injunctions, which are, however, for the
most part of a general character. Charity was
to be nurtured, Divine services properly per-
formed, and especially those of our Lady and
for the departed, and others said without note,
which were not to be gabbled, and one side was
not to begin the verse of a psalm before the
other side had finished. Seculars were to be
restrained from frequent use of the cloister
and infirmary and other private places. No
strangers were to eat in the refectory except
mature and worthy persons. The sick were to
be attended to as their needs required and the
means allowed, and they were to have a dis-
creet and modest canon, at the appointment of
the prior, who should say the canonical hours,
and celebrate mass to their edification and
solace. All the members of the house were to
use the accustomed habit, and avoid novelties in
dress.

In July 1328* Archbishop Melton ordered
three canons, for disobedience, to be sent to other
houses of the order—John de Thresk to Cartmel,
John de Kilvington to Hexham, and William de
Wycome to St. Oswald’s, Gloucester. Four
other rebellious canons were to receive a weekly
discipline.

It was the custom for the archbishop to claim
a pension for someone nominated by himself, on
the occasion of the creation of a new abbot or
prior, in certain of the monasteries. ‘The custom
prevailed in regard to Newburgh, and on
2 August 1323%* Archbishop Melton wrote to
the prior and convent to assign a decent annual
pension to Richard de Whatton, clerk, virtute
creacionis novi prioris. Apparently the new prior
was John de Cateryk, who had been elected two
years before.

In 1366 Archbishop Thoresby gave notice
of his intention to visit Newburgh, because a
rumour had reached him that the house, by the
indiscreet rule of the prior and the carelessness
of the officials, was very greatly in debt and
almost bankrupt. The result of the visitation
is not recorded. In 1380-1 the convent
comprised the prior and fifteen canons.

In 1404” one of those little gleams of light
which help to make the daily routine of the
house more realistic is thrown upon the scene
by an indult granted by Pope Boniface IX to
William Chester, priest and Augustinian canon
of Newburgh ; seeing that by the customs of the
priory each of the canons, being a priest, was
bound in a certain order to say mass week by
week, in a loud voice and with music, such

" Tbid. Melton, fol. 230.

" Thid. fol. 250d. * Thid. fol. 2414.
* Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 184.

* Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 63, no. 12.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 609.

228

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

canons being called ehdomadarii, and seeing that
he, on account of an impediment of his tongue,
could not conveniently do so, he was to be free
for life from such obligation.

Archbishop George Nevill gave notice of a
visitation of Newburgh on 11 October 1465,”
and a letter is preserved in his register from the
prior, William Helmesley, giving the names and
offices of the persons summoned to appear before
the archbishop. The offices were those of sub-
prior, sacrista et magister fabricarum, magister
tannarie, elemosinarius, cellerarius, magister
sartrie, magister firmarie, cantor, hostiarius,”®
magister granarie, sub-cellarius, sub -cantor,
sub -sacrista, refectorarius. The result of the
visitation itself does not seem to have been
entered in the register.

Inthe Taxatioof 1291° the ancient assessment
of Newburgh is put at £81 75. and the new
assessment at £20.

In 1527* the clear value was returned as
£300, and in the Valor Ecclesiasticus* the total
income was returned as £457 135. 5d. and the
clear value at £367 8s. 3d. The priory of
Newburgh held property in Durham, Leicester-
shire, and Lincolnshire, besides Yorkshire.*”

Drs. Legh and Layton ® record, as superstition
at Newburgh, that the canons had the girdle
“Sancti Salvatoris,’ which, as it was said, was
good for those in child-birth, They had also in
veneration an arm of St. Jerome.

There were seventeen canons besides the
prior, William Lenewodd, at the dissolution,*4
four of whom were deacons. The prior received
a yearly pension of £50, and the others sums
varying from £16 135. 4d. to £4 each.

When an inquiry was made in the seventh
year of Edward VI* as to the payment of pen-
sions in the North Riding the following return
was made as to Newburgh: William Edward

*” York Archiepis. Reg. Geo. Nevill, fol. 19.

°° Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 325.

8° Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 64, no. 303.

| Valor Eccl. v, 92.

3? Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 317-18.

31. and P. Hen. VIII, x, p. 137.

“Ibid. xiv (1), p. 67. One of the canons
named in the list, Thomas Ripon, ‘ otherwise called
Wardroper, preste,’ made his will 21 April 1543,
and left his * bodie to be buried within the
churche of Cookwolde. . . . Also I bequeathe to
everie brother of Newburgh beinge at my buriall
xij@.” . . . The will, which has much else of interest
in it, contains bequests to the canons still living: to
Sir Gilbert Kirkbie, two half portasses ; to Sir William
Barker, a bonnet; to Sir William Graie, a velvet
cap ; to Sir William Edward, two cloth tippets, &c. ;
to Sir William Johnson, ‘ one swerd,’ and to Sir John
Flynnte, a sarcenet tippet. Reg. York Wills, xiii,
fol. 138.

* K.R. Exch. Accts. (P.R.O.), bdle. 76, no. 24.

(106s. 8d.) appeared with his patent ; John Flint
(106s. 8d.) ‘is dead the xth day of July in the
first yere of Kinge Edward the Sexe’ [1547];
Robert Tenant (100s.); Rowland Fostar (1005.);
Thomas Grason (£4); James Barwyke (£4) ;
and William Graye (£4) appeared with their
patents and were for the most part a year in
arrear,

On 18 December 1537 % the council in the
north wrote to the king that ‘of late a young
fellow, Brian Boye, late servant to the Prior of
Newburgh as keeper of St. Saviour’s Chapel
(whereunto many pilgrims resort), said that the
prior has spoken unfitting words of your high-
ness,’ The prior and Boye were examined to-
gether, and the prior swore that it was false.
Boye was commanded home to his father, and
although there was no other evidence against the
prior they say ‘we have thought right to sequester
him till the king’s pleasure is known at St. Leo-
nard’s, York,®” a house of the same order, with
our fellow Mr. Magnus.’

Priors orf NEwBURGH

Augustine *8

Richard, occurs 1169-70

Swein, occurs before 1195 ”

Barnard, occurs 1199 *#

M..., occurs 1199 #

D..., occurs 1202 8

Philip, occurs 1225 **-31 4

Ingram, occurs 1246-9 *

John, occurs 1252-3 *8

William de Louthorpe (mentioned 1284)

John de Skipton, 1250-1 #

Robert, occurs 1279, 1280 (de Hoving-
ham) ®

% 1. and P. Hen. VIII, xii (1), 534.

* St. Leonard’s was an Augustinian hospital.

*° There is some doubt about the succession of the
first four priors, but it seems probable from Roger de
Mowbray’s grant of St. Andrew’s Church, Fishergate,
York (Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. vi, 320, no. v), when the
canons were at Hood, that Augustine, who is named
in the charter, was the first prior.

°° Pipe R. 16 Hen. II (Pipe R. Soc.), 44.

Rievaulx Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), 113.

" Guisborough Chartul. ii, 553; Cott. MS. Vesp.
E. xix, fol. 73.

® Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 7.

8 Coucher Bk. of Selby, ii, 141.

“> Cott. MS. Nero D. ili, fol. 51.

“ Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 145.

“ Feet of F. file 39, no. 85 ; file 41, no. 25.

*° Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 145.

“ Tid.

“ As ‘Schipton’; Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 317.
Mentioned 1329 as Skipton ; Baildon, Mon. Notes, i,
145.
” Feet of F. file 57, no. 20 (Trin. 7 Edw. I).
° Ibid, file 59, no. gt (Mich. 8 Edw. I).

5! Baildon, Mon. Noves,i, 145.

229

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

William de Empingham, confirmed 28 Jan.
1280-1 © (or Implingham *’), occurs 1282,
1284 %

John de Foxholes, elected 1304,°° resigned *”

John de Hoton, elected 1318,°8 died *

John de Cateryk, elected 1321,” died 1331 %

John de Thresk, elected 1331 ®

Thomas de Hustewayt, appointed 1351 ©

John de Kylvington, occurs 1359 (Query, an
intruder)

John de Thresk (Query, a second time), died
1369

Thomas de Hustewayt, elected 1369 *

John Easingwold, occurs 15 July 1437,°
died

John Millom, confirmed 4 Aug. 1437,” died ®

William Helmesley, confirmed 15 Dec. 1459 ®

Thomas Yarom, elected 1476

John Latover, elected 1483, resigned”!

Thomas Barker, elected 16 June 15187

John Ledes, elected 15247

Robert, occurs 1535, 1536 77°

William Lenewodd,’* 1538

* York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 22.

*§ Baildon, Mon. Nores,i, 145.

* Thid. ** Tbid.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 29.

57 Thid. Melton, fol. 225.

*$ Ibid. * Ibid. fol. 237.

® Ibid. §! Ibid. fol. 2544.

® Ibid. There is a good deal of confusion at this
period. On 20 and 26 July John de Thresk occurs
as prior (Ca/. of Papal Letters, iii, 369), but on 4 June
1351 Archbishop Zouch confirmed a pension granted
by the prior and convent for John de Thresk on
his resignation (Reg. Zouch, fol. 171). Again, on
17 May 1358 Archbishop Thoresby granted a letter of
provision for him, in which he is spoken of as ‘late
prior.” On 30 May 1369 Pope Innocent VI directed
Bishop Gynwell of Lincoln, on the petition of Thomas
Hustewaite, Canon of Newburgh, who had obtained
the priory of Newburgh by the authority of Arch-
bishop Melton on the resignation of John de Thresk,
which was unlawfully occupied by John de Kylling-
ton (Kilvington), who had obtained it simoniacally, to
inquire into and punish the crimes and excesses com-
mitted by the clergy of the said church (Ca/. of Papal
Letters, iti, 607). Finally, Archbishop Thoresby’s
register records that on 12 Sept. 1369 Brother
Thomas de Hustewayt was confirmed as prior vice
John de Thresk deceased (York Archiepis. Reg.
Thoresby, fol. 1884).

Appointed by Archbishop Melton (Ca/. of Papal
Letters, iii, 607).

“ For these three priors see 62.

§ Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 145 (pardon).

° York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 392.

* Ibid. Ibid. W. Booth, fol. 644.

® Ibid. 7° Thid. sede vac. fol. 490d.

” Dugdale, Msn. Angi. vi, 317. (Perhaps Latoner ;
see, under Esholt, Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 470.)

™ Dugdale, Men. Angi. vi, 317.

3 Tbid. ™ Valor Eccl. v, 92.

*® Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 145.

The earliest seal,” of 12th-century work, is
a vesica, 3in. by 2 in., the obverse having our
Lady crowned, sceptred, and seated, holding the
Child. The legend is :—

SIGILLVM SANCTE MARIE DE NEVBVRGO

The reverse is an antique gem in a vesica, 1} in,
by 14 in., with the legend :—

SIGNV OBEDIENCIE ET PIETATS.

The 12th-century seal ® of the secretary of
the chapter is another antique gem in a vesica,
2} in. by 1fin., with the legend :—

+} s’ sECRETAR’ CAPITVLI BEATE MARIE DE
NOVOBVYRGO

The second seal” of the abbey is a 13th-
century vesica, 3 in. by 18 in., showing our Lady
crowned and sceptred and seated in a richly-
decorated chair between two censing angels.
She holds the Child on her left knee, and is
blessing with her right hand. Below is the
prior with two monks. The legend is :-—

SIGILLVM A... CTE MARIE DE NOVORB i... 5 2 «

The r2th-century seal ® of Prior Barnard is a
small vesica, 1} in. by rin., with a seated figure
of a saint, and the legend :—

. «+ NARD PRIOR’ DE NOVOBVRGO

55. HOOD

(Cet or Newburcn)

Hood is first heard of as the place where
Robert de Alneto, the uncle or nephew of Gun-
dreda the wife of Nigel de Albini and an ex-
monk of Whitby, was leading the life of a hermit.
It was to Robert de Alneto that Gundreda
directed Abbot Gerald and his convent after
they had left Calder, and at Hood they first
settled, Robert de Alneto himself becoming a
member of the community.®!

It was in 1138 that Roger de Mowbray granted
Hood to Abbot Gerald and his convent, and after
four or five years’ sojourn there they moved to
Old Byland, and while at Byland ® Abbot Roger,
at the request of Roger de Mowbray, their
founder, and Sampson de Albini, gave Hood to

7 Cat. of Seals, B.M., 3676; Cott. Chart. v, 13.

7 Ibid. 3678, lxxiv, 88.

® Ibid. 3679, Ixxiv, 87.

1! Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 343. The whole of the
earlier history of Hood will be found there in the
account of Byland Abbey. For charters relating to
Hood itself see Mon. Angl. vi, 322.

? Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 351.

230

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

certain canons of Bridlington, who were coming
to colonize Roger de Mowbray’s new foundation
of Austin canons at Newburgh. Hood remained
in the possession of the canons of Newburgh, and
became a cell of that house, and so continued till
the Dissolution.

In a visitation of that house on 11 October
1286® Archbishop Romanus ordered that a
refractory conversus, named Roger de Soureby,
was to go to Hood, and apply himself to agricul-
ture, and hold the tail of the plough, in place of
a paid-servant. He was to fast each Wednesday
and Friday on bread, ale, and vegetables, and
receive three disciplines a week from the Canon
President of Hood, to whom he was to confess
at least once a week.

In 1332 Archbishop Melton visited the church,
or chapel, of Hood, by commission.** Brother
John de Overton, the canon celebrating at Hood,
and certain lay parishioners appeared, and the
commissioners made certain corrections which
have not been entered in the Register. The
visitation reveals the fact that the church, or
chapel, had in some manner parochial rights,
and parishioners belonging to it.

56. THE PRIORY OF NOSTELL

The origin of the great and wealthy priory of
Nostell is not free from obscurity. It seems
quite certain that on or near the site where the
Augustinian priory was afterwards founded there
was a hermitage dedicated in honour of St. James?
in which a certain unknown number of hermits
were congregated. It has been said that the
priory of Austin canons which succeeded them
was founded by IIbert de Lacy in the reign of
William Rufus,? and that the order of Austin
canons was first introduced into England at Nos-
tell by a certain ‘Athelwulphus or Adulphus,
confessor to Henry I.’* It is clear, however,
that the canons were not settled at Nostell till
the time when Thurstan was Archbishop of York,
which was not till 1114, and therefore, although
undoubtedly the first house of the order in York-
shire, others, such as Colchester, founded in 1105,
took precedence as earlier foundations in England.
That Ilbert de Lacy had in some manner made
arrangements for the establishment of a monastery
at Nostell is very probable, but its actual founda-
tion must be assigned to his son Robert, in the
reign of Henry I.

The story of the foundation, as told in a manu-
script compiled when Robert de Quixley, who
succeeded in 1393, was prior, is briefly as

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 504.

“ Ibid. Melton, fol. 257.

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 89 ; Burton, Mon. Ebor.
300.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 89. 3 Ibid. 37.

* Ibid. g2, no. ii (Charter of Henry I).

follows.’ Henry I was accompanied on an ex-
pedition against the Scots by his chaplain, Ralph
Adlave,® who fell ill, and was detained at Pontefract.
When convalescent, and on a hunting expedition,
he came across the hermits, whose mode of life
so impressed him that he decided to do what he
could to found a priory there, and when the
king returned obtained the royal consent. Ralph
Adlave then became an Augustinian canon, and
by the king’s direction assumed the position of
head of the establishment, which then consisted
of eleven brethren. Henry I favoured the new
establishment, and made a grant of 12d. a day to
it from the king’s revenues in Yorkshire. Others
followed the king’s example as benefactors, chief
of whom was Robert de Lacy, in whose fee of
the honour of Pontefract Nostell was situated.
He granted to God and the church of St.
Oswald of Nostell and the canons regular there
half a carucate of land where the canons’ church
was situated, together with the churches of
Warmfield, Huddersfield, Batley, and Rothwell,
besides other land and property.”

Henry I® confirmed these gifts of Ilbert de
Lacy or Robert his son,® to the church of the
blessed Oswald, king and martyr, near the castle
of Pontefract in a place called ‘ Nostla,’ in which
canons regular had been established (constituts
sunt) by Archbishop Thurstan. Besides confirm-
ing the grants of Robert de Lacy, he confirmed
those of other benefactors, which included a
considerable number of churches, both in York-
shire and elsewhere, two of which were
Bamburgh in Northumberland, which became a
rich cell of Nostell, and Bramham, which was
made a prebend in the church of St. Peter, York,
annexed to the priorship of Nostell. In addition,
the king granted the canons the same liberties
and customs as those possessed by the mother
church of the blessed Peter of York. Thus, at
the very outset, the priory of Nostell was richly
endowed, and possessed of a large number of
churches. The king confirmed all, for the souls
of his father, William the Great (Willelmi Magni),
king of the English, Queen Maud his mother,
Queen Maud II his wife, William his son,
and all faithful departed.

Henry II confirmed the grants again,’ in-
cluding some others and that of a fair at Nostell,
granted by Henry I on the feast of St. Oswald
and two succeeding days. ‘The possessions of
the priory are set out by Burton,” and he has
prefixed to them an account, derived from the

5 Burton, Mon. Ebor. 300.

‘For the reasons for supposing the name ‘ Ralph
Adlave ’ to be an error see note 38.

” Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 91, no. i.

8 Tbid. 2, no. ii.

® <Sicut unquam Ilbertus de Laceio, vel Robertus
filius ejus,’ &c.

Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 93, no. iv.

" Burton, Mon. Ebor. 301-9.

231

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

manuscript before mentioned, of the growth of
the monastic buildings under the successive
priors. The site was changed, at a very early
date, to one a little northward of the original
chapel or church of St. Oswald, by authority of
a bull of Calixtus II.12 The change was made
to bring the monastery nearer to a certain pool,
often referred to in the charters.

In 11537° Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln,
then lord of Pontefract, disputed the canons’
right to the site on which they were building
the house. But he relinquished his claim when
he joined the Crusade.

The priory had no less than five cells
attached to it, the two more important being
Bamburgh in Northumberland, and Breedon in
Leicestershire. A third was that of Hirst in the
Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire, and the two
others those of Woodkirk otherwise Erdislaw,
and Scokirk otherwise Tockwith in York.
Much of the revenues of the priory was derived
from Bamburgh, and when, at times, the reve-
nues from Bamburgh failed, owing to Scottish
raids, the priory felt the loss severely.

The churches which the canons possessed in
whole or part numbered over thirty, besides
others from which they received a pension, or
of which they only possessed part.’

In 1312,'° when Prior William de Birstall
resigned, the produce of Bamburgh was sold for
£383 115. gd. The priory had then a large
number of servants, viz., eleven in the malt-
house and bakery, five in the kitchen, besides the
master and cook, three in the brewhouse, nine in
the smithy and carpenter’s shop, five carriers,
sixteen ploughmen, besides others at manors,
making in all seventy-seven. In autumn the
reapers’ expenses ran to £1,274, and the kitchen
expenses £224 18s, 4d., besides what was taken
out of the stores. The farm stock included
2,540 sheep, 100 cows, four bulls, seventy-two
oxen, sixty-one heifers, and thirty-three calves.
There were then twenty-six canons in the house.

In 1328 the priory was held by several
creditors to whom it owed {1,012 4s. Id.; the
profits of Bamburgh had been lost for fifteen
years, amounting in the whole to £4,450, and
the church of Birstall, which used to bring in
£100 a year, for six years had only brought in
£40, so that the canons had lost £ 360.

In three years the canons lost 1,200 sheep,
fifty-nine oxen, and 400 cows, calves, &c., but in
two years John de Insula, prior, managed the
affairs so well that he was able to pay off £540
of the debt, and left £319 in the treasury.

In 1372, when Prior Thomas de Derford
died, he left 8,000 sheep in the pastures, and 800
marks of silver in the treasury. Yet in 1390,

* Burton, Mon. Ebor.301. “Ibid. ™ Ibid. 309.

'* These particulars have been derived by Burton
(Mon. Ebor. 301, 302) from the manuscript volume
previously mentioned.

when Prior Adam de Bilton resigned, the house
owed 1,200 marks.

In 1217)° Pope Honorius III inhibited the
Prior of St. Oswald, on the petition of the sub-
prior and convent, from receiving any person
as canon, or disposing of any of the benefices,
without the consent of the convent, or the major
part of it.

A very strange story is revealed in another
mandate, issued by the pope in the same year, to
the archbishop.” The prior and convent had
complained to the pope that the archbishop had
despoiled them of two of their churches, viz.,
South Kirkby and Tickhill, and they related
that the archbishop had broken the cross, and
cast to the ground the sacred host, which the
canons and their lay brothers held in their
defence, and that he had expelled them from
their churches, beating some so severely that
one was said to have died, and others were
dangerously hurt. The archbishop likewise, as
they said, had broken down the altars, excom-
municated the prior and canons, and absolved
clerks, vicars, and others from payment of their
dues. The entry in the papal register is
cancelled. It ordered the archbishop to restore
the churches within fifteen days, and make com-
pensation. It is impossible to believe that Arch-
bishop Gray took any personal part in such an
affray ; but there was probably some unseemly
scuffle in one of the churches between his
officials and certain canons and conversi during
which the host was thrown (probably by accident)
to the ground, and some present were more or
less hurt. It is interesting to find the canons
protecting themselves by carrying the host.’

Archbishop Wickwane held a visitation of
Nostell Priory in 1280,!° and there is a brief
memorandum in his register stating that no
injunctions were issued guia omnia bene. On
25 October 1290” Archbishop Romanus sent
Gilbert de Ponteburgo, who had just resigned
the office of Prior of Thurgarton,”! back to

* In the foundation charter of Robert de Lacy the
church of South Kirkby is included as one of his gifts.
In the confirmation of Henry I it is said to have
been given by Hugh de Laval ; Dugdale, Mon. Ang/.
vi, 92. Tickhill was given by Archbishop Thurstan.
There had been previous trouble as to the prebend of
Bramham, which, in 1216, the pope ordered the
dean and chapter to restore tothe prior and convent ;
Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 45.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 35. The
statement that all was well at the visitation is one of
the very few entries of the kind in any of the
registers. St. Mary’s York, Warter, and Whitby
were similarly distinguished on this occasion.

* Tbid. Romanus, fol. 364.

* He was elected Prior of Thurgarton 9 July
1284. There seems to have been a charge of
incontinence brought against him at Thurgarton;
Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 190.

52.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Nostell, of which house he had been canon, and
in which he had been professed, and the arch-
bishop desired the Prior and canons of Nostell
to receive him with loving-kindness. On
6 October 1291” the archbishop confirmed
the election of William de Birstall as prior, and
also issued a mandate to the Dean and Chapter
of York, that as the sub-prior and convent had
canonically elected him, ‘vobis mandamus
quatinus ipsum racione prebende sue in nostra
Ebor. Ecclesia in fratrem et canonicum ad-
mittentes, stallum in choro et locum in capitulo
debite assignatis, in persona ipsius, modo consueto,’
&c. The prebend of Bramham consisted of the
impropriations of the churches of Bramham,
Wharram-le-Street, and Lythe.™ It was an-
nexed, when first founded, by Archbishop
Thurstan to the priory of Nostell, and continued
to be held by the prior till the Dissolution.

As a result of a visitation of the house, Arch-
bishop Greenfield on 28 October 1313 % wrote
to the prior and canons that Brother William
Wyler, Prior of their cell at Breedon, and
Henry de Dermor, master or warden of their
church of Bamburgh, who were accused of
certain excesses, were to be recalled at once, to
answer for themselves and receive due punish-
ment needed; and in another letter of the
same date* he ordered that Brother Benedict
de Suddele, who, by his own admission, had
misbehaved, was to be sent for the expiation of
his crimes to their cell in the Isle of Axholme,
and undergo a penance there. On the 19th * of
the same month he ordered Brother John de
Dewesbury to be sent to Breedon under very
similar conditions, and on 24 November ”
Brother Thomas de Giderhowe was dispatched
to Bridlington.

On Monday after the feast of St. Luke
1320 * Archbishop Melton held a visitation, as
a result of which he sent on 10 November a
long decretum to the prior and canons.

The house was overburdened with debts,
pensions, liveries, and corrodies, all the members
were therefore exhorted to be as economical as
possible, till they were solvent. The sick were
to have lighter food, and a doctor was to be
appointed to attend the infirmary. The services
were to be duly celebrated, and those of our
Lady, or for the dead, or others said without
note, were not to be gabbled, but recited dis-
tinctly, and aloud, and one side was not to
begin a verse before the other had ended. As
Brothers John de Wath and Benedict de
Suddeley residing at Woodkirk, Brother John
de Pontefracto at Hirst, and Brothers William

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 40.

An Accurate Description and Hist. etc. of the
Church of St. Peter, York (York, 1770), ii, 186.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 71.

% Tbid. 6 Ibid. ii, fol. 714.

” Ibid. fol. 7125. 3 Ibid. Melton, fol. 1424.

3 233

de Norton and Henry de Huddresfield at
Bamburgh, as well as the four canons of
Breedcn, had not, as it was said, been summoned
to the visitation, the archbishop directed that the
prior was in future to summon all such
brethren to visitations,

Corrodies, &c., were not to be granted, or
woods sold, without the archbishop’s licence.
Two bursars were to be appointed, :donei et
fideles, to receive all rents and profits and take
proper charge of them, as in other houses.

Efficient officers were to be appointed, both
external and internal, and accounts were to be
presented to the prior and five or six of the
older and wiser canons, and then shown to the
chapter.

The mission of canons to the cells, and their
recall, was to be with the consent of the convent,
as well as of the prior, or at least with the con--
sent of the seniors.

Without delay the prior was to see that the
guest-house was better provided with bed-
clothes than had been wont, lest by defect in a
small matter the house should get a bad name.

No women should enter the outer door to ask
for the liveries or corrodies, but such were to be
asked for by men, lest, under colour of entry of
women, sins, or any other illicit acts, should be
committed.

As certain of the charters and muniments had
been sent, not long ago, to Breedon, for the
conservation of their cell there, and in part
ought to come back to the monastery, and as
the Prior for the time being of Breedon refused
to return them, the archbishop directed that
someone, chosen by the whole consent of the
entire convent, was to be sent there and bring
them back. As regarded the mission and
revocation of canons to and from Breedon, with
consent of the chapter, the prior was directed
that the old method was to be followed.

The archbishop found at the visitation that
certain young canons were of old accustomed to
study in the cloister, and on feasts of doubles to
make collations in turn in chapter, and so were
more studious. "The old custom was to be
followed.

Blind and feeble canons were not to be com-
pelled to keep convent, but were to be in the
infirmary, unless their devotion and powers led
them to church.

Writing in April 1323 °® to the Prior and
convent of Bolton, Archbishop Melton stated
that the monastery of Nostell was suffering from
various oppressions, and being unable to main-
tain its members-he sent Brother Thomas de
Mannyngham, one of its canons, to their house.

Archbishop Zouch in 1351°° directed the prior
to punish certain of the canons who, regardless of
their yoke of obedience, had committed many

York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 150.
% Tbid. Zouch, fol. 59.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

insolences both within and outside the monas-
tery; but who they were, or what were their
offences, is not recorded.

In 1364°! Urban V granted a faculty to
Thomas, Prior of St. Oswald’s, Nostell, to
dispense six canons of his monastery to be
ordained priests in their twenty-second year,
many having-died of the pestilence.

In 1380* there were fifteen canons besides
the prior.

In 1438 the priory was so impoverished by
lawsuits, the expense of re-building their
church and other causes, that the king granted
to the canons the hospital of St. Nicholas, in
Pontefract.?™

The Archbishop of York claimed an annual
pension of 5 marks from the priory for any clerk
he might name, on the creation of a new prior,
and on g May 1480 * Archbishop Rotherham
claimed the pension for John Wigmore, his

clerk, on the election of William Melsonby to
' the vacancy created by the death of Prior
William Assheton.

For some reason not known, Melsonby re-
signed ‘dolo, fraude, et metu quibuscumque
cessantibus,” two months after his election,*
and the archbishop directed that he was to have
the mansion or rectory of the parish church of
Bamburgh for his dwelling, with all the tithes.

The gross revenue * according to the /’alor
Ecclesiasticus was £606 gs. 34d., and the clear
annual value {£492 18s. 2d. Drs. Legh and
Layton record as superstition that a pilgrimage
was made here to St. Oswald. The house was
surrendered by Robert Ferrer, prior (afterwards
Bishop of St. David’s), and twenty-eight canons
on 20 November, 1540,°° and the site was
afterwards granted to Dr. Legh,” one of the
notorious commissioners.

Priors oF NostELL

Athelwold,*® 1121, occurs 1122
Savardus, elected 1153

| Cal. Papal Letters, iv, 37.

3 Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 63, no. 12.

8 Cal. Pat. 1436-41, p. 190.

York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 1264.

* Ibid. fol. 1274.

% Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 62.

%® Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. vi, gt.

7 Ibid.

©The list in Burton (Mon. Ebor. 310), and
others copied from Burton, place Ralph Adelavus or
Adelave first, with the date 1121, followed by
Adelwald, who became first Bishop of Carlisle in
1133, and had been chaplain to Henry I. Mr.
Baildon (Mon. Notes, i, 152) suggests that these were
one and the same person. This seems certainly
correct, as in a charter concerning land at Twyford,
between the canons of St. Paul’s, London, and
William Cranfort, in 1122, among the witnesses
occurs ‘Adeloldo priore Sancti Oswaldi’ (Hist.

Geoffrey, died 1175

Anketil, elected 1175, died 1196

Robert de Wodekirk succeeded, died 1199
Ralph de Bedford, died 1208

Robert (?), 1208 *

John, occurs 1209, 1218 *

Ralph (?), occurs 1219-27 *

John, occurs 1231-6,*! died 1237 #
Ambrose, died 1240%

Stephen, resigned 1244"

Ralph succeeded,*® occurs Easter 1244,*° died

1246 *”

Robert de Behal succeeded 1246," died
1255 *

William de Clifford,’ occurs 1255,°! died
1297

Richard de Wartria, elected 1276,°% occurs
1285 *4

Thomas, occurs 1286 *

Richard de Wartria,®® occurs Trinity 1291,*7
died August 1291 ©

William de Birstall, elected 1291, resigned

1312 ©

Henry de Aberford, elected 1312,*! resigned
1328:

John de Insula, appointed 1328, occurs
1331"

John de Dewsbury, confirmed 1331,” died
1336 66

MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. 1, 65). The prefixing of
the name Ralph to the form Adelave must be an
error. Le Neve gives a number of variants of the
form of the name of the first Bishop of Carlisle, as
e.g., Adulfus, Aethelwulfus, Arnulphus, Aelulfus,
Adelulfus, Adelwaldus (Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae [ed.
Hardy], ili, 229). The other five succeeding names
and dates are taken from Burton (Mon. Ebor. 310).

* After the death of Ralph de Bedford Roger de
Lacy, a patron, informed Archbishop Geoffrey that one
Robert had been elected prior. Cott. MS. Vesp. E.
xix (Chartulary of Nostell), fol. 14 d.

> Ibid. fol. 166 d.

* Cal. Papal Letters, i, 52.

1225, 1227.
“ Tbid. “ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, gt.
* Ibid. “ Ibid. * Ibid.
“ Baildon, loc. cit. “’ Dugdale, loc. cit.
® Ibid. “ Tbid. ® Tbid.

§| Baildon, loc. cit. * Dugdale, loc. cit.

8 He was elected on 30 December, while Henry
de Lacy, the patron, was outside the county ; he
might therefore have presented himself to the steward
of Pontefract, but he preferred to go the longer
distance to the patron ; Chartulary, fol. 16.

* Tbid. fol. 10d.

§5 Baildon, loc. cit. * Dugdale, loc. cit.

57 Baildon, loc. cit. % Dugdale, loc. cit.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 40.

® Tbid. Greenfield, ii, fol. 55. *' Ibid.

* Ibid. Melton, fol. 1726. ® Ibid.

* Baildon, loc. cit. * Dugdale, loc. cit.

* Ibid. ; Chartulary, fol. 16.

234

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Thomas de Derfield,” Driffeld,® or Derford,®
occurs 1350,” died”

Richard de Wombwell, confirmed 1372,”
occurs 13787

Adam de Bilton, succeeded
Oct. 1390 7*

John de Ledes,™ confirmed 1390,” died
1393”°

Robert de Quixley, confirmed 1393,’ died
1427%

John Huddersfeld [a/ias Blythebroke, occurs
1438 "], confirmed 1427," occurs 1437,
1452," 1455”

Stephen Melsanby, occurs 1446 ®

John, occurs 1470 *4

William Assheton, confirmed 1472, died
1489

William Melsonby, confirmed 11
1489,” resigned July 1489 ®

Thomas Wilcok, confirmed 29 July 1489 ®

Richard Hirst,” occurs 1489," 1498 *

Richard Marsden, confirmed 1505 °°

Alvered Comyn, confirmed 1524 %

Robert Ferrer, last prior,®* surrendered 20
November 1540

1385, occurs

May

The seal of Nostell is circular, and shows
St. Oswald seated on a chair decorated with
wolves’ heads ; in his right hand a cross and in
his left a sprig of laurel ; legend :

SIGILLV sCi OSWALDI REGIS MR DE NOSTELL,

§ Dugdale, loc. cit.

As Thomas de ‘Driffeld,’ confirmed 30 April
1337; York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 213. His
successor Ric. de Wombwell was elected to the
vacancy caused by the death of Thomas de ‘ Derfeld’;
Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 1654.

® Dugdale, loc. cit.

7 Baildon, loc. cit.

” Dugdale, loc. cit.

™ York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 1654.

73 Baildon, loc. cit.

a Chartulary, fol. 27 d.

™ Dugdale, loc. cit.

% Tbid.

7 Thid.

7 Ibid. Kemp, fol. 364.

7? Baildon, loc. cit.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 364.

§! Baildon, loc. cit.

® Chartul. fol. 70.

8 Baildon, loc. cit.

* Baildon’s MS. Notes.

% York Archiepis,. Reg. G. Nevill, fol. 148.

* Ibid. Rotherham, i, fol. 1254.

*” Tbid.

* Ibid. fol. 1264, Melsonby, not Meltonby.

® Ibid. % Dugdale, loc. cit.

*! Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 260, 261.

* Chartul. fol. 113.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 425.

™ Tbid. Wolsey, fol. 75,

® Dugdale, loc. cit.

Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 91.

% Ibid.

57. THE PRIORY OF WARTER

The priory of Warter was founded in 1132,}
by Geoffrey Fitz Pain, otherwise Trusbut, who
conferred upon it the church of Warter and
6 bovates of land in the fields of that place.

Geoffrey,’ son of William Trusbut, con-
firmed and supplemented the gifts of his prede-
cessor, and his brother Robert? Trusbut, by a
separate charter, conceded the grants of Geoffrey
Fitz Pain and Geoffrey Trusbut, and added to
them the church of All Saints, Melton.

All these grants were confirmed by Henry III,‘
and in 1245° by Pope Innocent IV. The
pope, in addition, granted that clerks or laymen
fleeing from the world might be received ad
conversionem, and retained without dispute. Any
of their brethren, having made profession in
their church, might not leave without the prior’s
licence, save for a more ascetic life (artioris
religionis). ‘The chrism, holy oil, consecrations
of altars or basilicas, the ordinations of clerks,
the canons were to receive from the diocesan
bishop. In time of a general interdict they
might (suppressa voce and the bells not rung)
celebrate divine service with closed doors, ex-
communicate and interdicted persons excluded.
No one was to build an oratory in their parish
without their leave and that of the diocesan.

Robert de Ros,® patron or the priory in 1279,
having seen the charters of his ancestors, con-
firmed them to God and the church of St. James
of Warter, and John the prior, and the canons.

In other ways, and from other benefactors,
the priory obtained property in a considerable
number of villages.’

In 1277,° to save it from ruin, Archbishop
Giffard annexed the hospital of St. Giles at
Beverley to Warter, with consent of the chapter
of York and the brothers of the hospital, order-
ing that the priests and conversi then in the
hospital should in future abide there or at
Warter, according to the ordinance of the prior
and convent.

The prior and canons also obtained possession
of the churches of Askham, Clifton, and Barton
in the diocese of Carlisle, which were confirmed
to them by Innocent IV. Also the churches of
Melton, and a portion of Ulceby in Lincoln-
shire. They also had, at one time, besides
Warter, the churches of Lund, Wheldrake, and
Nunburnholme in Yorkshire; but in 1268,° when
the archbishop appropriated Lund to the priory,

' Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 297.

Ibid. 299, no. il. 5 Tbid. no. iii.

‘Ibid. no. iv. 5 Ibid. no. ix.

6 Ibid. no. vii.

” Burton, Mon. Ebor. 381-4.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 301, no. xii. The
annexation of the hospital was confirmed by the
king. Chart. R. 14 Edw. I, no. 39.

® Burton, Mon. Ebor. 384.

235

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the patronage of Wheldrake and Nunburnholme
was ceded to the archbishop and his successors.

In 1358 ° Archbishop Thoresby ordained, in
regard to Warter, that one of the canons should
be the vicar, and have a competent portion
allowed him among his brethren,

Henry III" granted the prior and canons a
market at Warter, and a fair on the feast of St.
James ; but the latter was forbidden by the king
in 1328, on account of certain murders com-
mitted at it.

On 21 December 1245 Innocent IV
granted an inhibition to the Prior and convent
of Warter, that no one should oblige them to
pay tithes of wool and milk, demanded contrary
to apostolic privileges, to rectors of parishes in
which the beasts of the monastery were pastured.

Archbishop Wickwane on 14 December
1280 * wrote to John de Queldrike that as he,
considering his feebleness and incapacity, had
tendered his resignation of the priorship, which
he had laudably exercised for some time, desiring
to spend the rest of his life in contemplative
leisure and divine services, in peace from the
turbulent waves of the age, he, the archbishop,
accepted the resignation, A notice was sent to
the sub-prior and convent to elect a successor,
and this was followed by a letter from the
patron, R. de Ros, to the archbishop, relating
that John de Thorp had been elected, and that
quantum in nobis est he had admitted him to
office, and humbly and devotedly asked the arch-
bishop ‘eundem ad regimen dicti prioratus benigne
si placet admittere velitis.’” This is one of the few
instances in Yorkshire in which the patron of
a religious house appears as taking part in an
election. The archbishop in this case annulled
the election as irregular, but on account of John
de Thorp’s qualifications for the office, which
he enumerated, appointed him prior.”

In the summer of 1280" the archbishop held
a visitation of the house, and no injunctions
were sent quia omnia bene se habuerunt—a pleasing

’ Burton, Mon. Ebor. 383.

"Tbid. 384 n. In 38 Henry III (1253-4),
Robert, Prior of Warter, wassummoned to show why
he raised a certain market and fair in Warter to the
injury of the free market and free fair of the Earl of
Albemarle in Pocklington. The prior relinquished
the market in Warter, and in return the earl granted
the prior and his successors leave to hold a fair each
year on the feast of St. James in the said vill. Feet
of F. file 47, no. 14 (Mich. 38 Henry III).

York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 1744.

'S Tbid. There is also a curious entry, marked in the
margin ‘pro speciebus emendis,’ in Archbishop Wick-
wane’s register. It is a grant, addressed by J. de
Queldrike, the prior, on 14 March 1279-80, to the
sub-prior and convent, of 30s. a year to buy spices
with, for improvement in singing the psalms. Ibid.
fol. 118 and 1184.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 174.

and most unusual entry. Eight years later,
however, in 1288,'® Archbishop Romanus sent
one of the canons, Ingeram de Munceus, to
Kirkham, with a letter to the prior and convent,
ordering them to admit and keep him in their
house, as the archbishop hoped that their holy
conversation might reform his morals.

On 13 October 1291” the archbishop con-
firmed a provision which had been made by
Robert de Brunneby, the sub-prior, and the
convent, for their prior, John de Thorp, whose
labours are highly spoken of. He was to have
a chamber on the south side of the infirmary,
with a chapel, cellar, and garden attached to it,
20 marks a year, and his portion of bread and
ale. To these the archbishop added in his
decretum, after visiting Warter, that as an
acknowledgement of his vigilance and labours,
and in response to his just request, he was dis-
pensed from taking his meals in the refectory,
sleeping in the dormitory, or rising for matins,
except at his own inclination.

The visitation had revealed everything in good
order, as the archbishop stated in the decretum
alluded to above, dated 23 February 1292-3.%
All was well, ‘nec apud vos, benedictus Altissimus,
quicquid corrigendum reperimus.’ There was
one exception, and that related to Brother
Simon de Skyrna, who had voluntarily confessed
in the presence of the whole convent, before the
archbishop, that he had sinned against John de
Thorp the prior. His correction was left to
the prior, who, having God before his eyes, was
to enjoin on him a salutary penance. If Sinion
de Skyrna did not devoutly undergo it, or con-
form himself in charity to the others, the arch-
bishop would, on hearing an evil report of him,
speedily remove him elsewhere.

In the following year !® the archbishop had to
deal with the complaint of a number of the
parishioners that they were unlawfully compelled
by the prior to make an offering in the parish
church of Warter on the feast of All Saints. It
was alleged that Godfrey, Archbishop of York,
had directed this. Archbishop Romanus held
an inquiry im porticu dicte ecclesie, on Wednesday,
the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle, 1293, the
complainants and a ‘ multitude’ of the parishio-
ners being present. Briefly, it was found that
Archbishop Godfrey never issued the supposed
order. The parishioners admitted that they
would freely make the offering, and the arch-
bishop decided that it was to be regarded as their
voluntary act, and not made under compulsion.

In the year 1300” the patron of the priory,
William de Ros, and others, complained to
Archbishop Corbridge that certain manslaughters
had been committed in the village of Warter by

16 Thid. Romanus, fol. 62.
18 Thid. fol. 66.
” Ibid. Corbridge, fol. 33.

V Thid. fol. 65 and 66.
8 Thid. fol. 674.

236

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

the canons’ men, and that they were providing
for the homicides with the goods of the house.
The archbishop at once ordered them not to
receive or defend or provide for the homicides
out of the goods of their house, which were for
their use and that of the poor.

In 1380-17! the Prior of Warter was taxed at
29s. 8d., and there were ten canons each taxed
at 35. 4d.

On 1 July 1388 John Claworth, sub-prior,
and John Hemyngburgh, Robert Takell, and
Richard de Beverley, canons of the house,
were appointed administrators in the place of
William Tyveryngton, who was suspended from
office owing to his notorious waste of the
property of the house, and for other reasons.
Shortly after this, Archbishop Arundel took
up the rule of the diocese, and on 21
November 1388 the suspended prior resigned.
The election of his successor took place on
11 December following,?? when, after mass
of the Holy Ghost, the canons, twelve in
number, proceeded to the election by way of
scrutiny, the three scrutators being John
Claworth, the sub-prior, John de Hemyngburgh,
and William de Tyveryngton, the late prior.
All voted for John de Hemyngburgh, except
himself, and he was declared duly elected, and
was thereafter confirmed and installed. It was
his second term of office, and he resigned again
in 1392, when Robert Takell succeeded him.

William York, vicar of the parish church of
Warter, was elected prior on 1 March 1453,”
in succession to Robert Hedon, who had
resigned. Five years later (16 August 1458)
Archbishop William Booth suspended William
York from the priorship owing to his waste of
the goods of the house, and appointed John
Stranton the sub-prior and John the cellarer
temporary custodians of the goods of the priory.

Archbishop Kemp in 1440 had forbidden all
abbots, priors, or others to sell, without the
special licence of their diocesans, within the
province of York, any wood, fallen or not.
Public report, however, had it that William York
had sold trees that had not fallen, as well as
those that had, at ‘Setonwoddes, Seynt Loy
Woddes, and Brokhirst,’ belonging to the priory,

in no small quantity, so that the woods them-

selves were nearly destroyed. Besides this, he
had sold various trees recently growing within
the precinct of the priory. Houses, moreover,
and buildings belonging to the priory, through
his neglect and carelessness had fallen to the
ground, His general dilapidation of the property

1 Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 63, no. 12.

7) York Archiepis. Reg. Arundel (sed. vac.), fol. 2
(the registers sed. vac. before Arundel’s rule are
contained in his register, not in the ‘Sede Vacante’
volume].

3 Tbid. Arundel, fol. 12.

* Tbid. W. Booth, fol. 68.

* Thid. fol. 35.
% Thid, fol. 1986.

had been to the grave injury of the house, and
the archbishop peremptorily cited him to show
cause why he should not be deposed from office.
The result was that York ‘renounced’ the
priorship, and on 13 October” the archbishop
sent a monition to him that he was to remove
himself within three days from the priory, and
was not to molest the prior or his brethren. <A
concurrent order was sent 8 to William Spenser,
the new prior, that he was to remove William
York within three days from the priory,
retaining the monastic belongings which he had,
but allowing him to keep his own. He was to
be kept from consorting with the brethren, lest
by his malice and evil ambition he should make
the sheep who were whole dissatisfied, overthrow
the monastery, and bring to naught the obser-
vance of religion. He was, however, granted on
25 November” a pension of 8 marks a year for
his maintenance, and on 8 December the arch-
bishop granted him letters testimonial, and a
licence to study at any university. In this way,
it seems, Warter got rid of him.

In 1526 ® the clear annual value was returned
at £118, and according to the Valor Ecclesias-
ticus,| £144 75. 8d.

In 1534 Archbishop Lee included it among
the houses which he visited. The injunctions .
which he then issued have been printed,®? and
only a brief summary is needed here. The
first portion of the injunctions were of a general
character. These include, however, a direction
that immediately after compline the cloister
doors were to be locked and the keys kept by
the prior or some discreet brother deputed by
him, and were not to be unlocked until 6 o’clock
in the morning in summer, and 7 in winter.
A more important injunction forbade the prior,
or any canon, to talk to women except in the
presence of two other canons who could witness
what was said and done. Any who infringed
this restriction would be held guilty of incon-
tinence. May this be charitably taken to explain
some of the cases of incontinence (which are
common) as being technical in character,
rather than actual breaches of the moral law?

The special injunctions to Warter directed
that the canons were to sleep in the dormitory,
each in his own appointed bed. They were to
eat together in the refectory, on common food,
and were not to use belts adorned with gold or
silver, or wear gold or silver rings, and were not
to go out without the prior’s leave, and the prior
was only to grant leave for good reason. The
prior was to hold an inquiry twice a year to
prevent private proprietorship, and once a year

7 Thid. fol. 2034. * Tbid.

Tbid. fol. 114. z

* State Papers (P.R.O.), 1526 (return by Brian
Higdon).

3! Valor Eccs. v, 126.

% Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xvi, 445.

237

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

was to render an account of all receipts and
expenses to the convent.

There were ten canons at the Dissolution, and
the priory and its entire property was granted in
1536-7 to Thomas, Earl of Rutland, so that
there was no time for returning to the Court of
Augmentation the annual account.**

Priors oF WaARTER *

Joseph

Ralph

Richard (abbot)

Yvo (abbot), occurs 1132 **

Nicholas, occurs 1206 *

Richard, occurs 1209

Thomas, occurs 1223,*° ruled six years

Ranulph, occurs 1229,*° ruled six years

John Leystingham, occurs 1235, ruled six
months

John de Dunelm, occurs 1236,‘ ruled eight
years

Robert de Lund, succeeded 1249," ruled
fifteen years

John de Queldrike, succeeded 1264,*% ruled
sixteen years

John de Thorp, succeeded 1280," ruled thirty-
three years

Richard de Welwyk, succeeded 1314," ruled
forty-four years

Robert de Balre, succeeded 1359,*° ruled four
years, resigned ‘7

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 298.

“In the Monasticon (Mon. Angl. vi, 298, no. i)
is a document entitled ‘ De prima fundatione ejusdem
et de Successione Priorum,’ which gives a list of the
priors with certain notes about them, and the lengths
of their rule, &c., ending with William Spenser
(elected 1458). The list, so far as it can be checked
with the registers, seems fairly correct. The third
and fourth are called abbots, but on what ground is
not explained. It should be noted that there is no
place for Robert, who is said, in the ordinary lists, to
have become prior in 1271. He is not named in
the ‘Successio,’ and the Register of Archbishop
Wickwane (fol. 1744) is explicit that John de Thorp
immediately succeeded John de Queldrike, between
whose names Robert has been thrust.

*® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 297.

86 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 210. 37 Ibid.
Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 297. * Tid.
Thid. “ Tbid.
© Tbid. 8 Tbid.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 1744.
® Tbid. Greenfield, ii, fol. 123.

“* Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 200.

“ Thid.

William de Ferriby, confirmed 1364, ruled
sixteen years

Henry de Holm, succeeded 1380," ruled three
years, died

John de Hemyngburgh, 1383,” first time ruled
one and a half year

William de Tyveryngton, 1385," ruled four
years, deposed and expelled

John de Hemyngburgh, confirmed 11 Dec.
1388, second time, ruled two and a half
years, died *

Robert Takell, elected 1392," ruled seventeen
years

Thomas Ruland, succeeded 1410, ruled ten
years seven months, resigned

William Warter succeeded, occurs 1423,
ruled twenty-five years, died 7

Robert Hedon, confirmed 1445,°° ruled eight
years nine months, resigned °°

William York, elected 1453,° ‘renounced’
priorship and expelled,®! ruled four years

William Spenser, succeeded 1458 ©

John Preston, confirmed 1483," died

Thomas Bridlington, confirmed 1495, re-
signed ®

Thomas Newsome, elected 14.98,” died 1526

William Holme, confirmed 1526 ®

* Ibid. fol. 211.

“© Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 297.

Thid. | Thid.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Arundel, fol. 13.

3 So in ‘Successio’ (Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 299,
no. i), but in Arundel’s Register, fol. 35, it is said
that Robert Takell was elected on the resignation of
John de Hemyngburgh.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Arundel, fol. 35. In Mr.
Baildon’s MS. Notes the Christian name is altered
from Robert to John (Takell). Robert is the name
in every case in which it occurs in the registers, is
also that in the ‘Successio,’ and as ‘Robert Takyll,
Prior of St. James, Wartre,’ he occurs, Cal. Papal
Letters, v, 230. Pardon to Robert Takell, Prior of
Warter, and John Etton his fellow canon, who were
in the field in the company of Richard, late Arch-
bishop of York, against the king, 10 Aug. 1409 ;
Cal. Pat. 1405-8, p. 55.

5° Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 297.

8 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 210.

’ York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp. fol. 403.

* Thid.

*° Tbid. W. Booth, fol. 389. © Ibid.

*! Ibid. fol. 2034. (His resignation, ibid. fol. 1124.)

* Thid. fol. 113.

® Ibid. Rotherham, i, fol. 43.

“ Ibid. fol. 894. ® Thid.
% Ibid. fol. 155. ® Ibid.
* Ibid. Wolsey, fol. 844. © Ibid.

238

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

HOUSE OF AUSTIN NUNS

58. THE PRIORY OF MOXBY
The nunnery of Molseby, or Moxby, to use

the modern form of the name, originated in the
foundation by Bertram de Bulmer of a double
monastery for canons and nuns of the Augustinian
order at Marton, either at the end of the reign
of Stephen, or the beginning of that of Henry II.!
The canons and nuns did not long continue
under the same roof, and Henry II gave the
adjacent territory of Moxby to the nuns, whither
they removed before 1167.7 The nuns con-
tinued to follow the Augustinian rule,? and
their house and chapel were under the invocation
of St. John the Evangelist.

The nuns obtained the church of Whenby,
which was formally appropriated to them by
Archbishop Wickwane in 1283.‘

On 16 March 1267-8° Archbishop Giffard
directed the Prior of Newburgh to visit the
prioress and nuns. Archbishop Wickwane ® in
like manner commissioned Magr. Thomas de
Grimeston, his clerk, to visit the nunnery in
December 1281. On 14 December 1289’
Archbishop Romanus appointed William, vicar
of Thirkleby, as master of the nuns of Molseby,
and on 8 May 1294° he committed the custody
of the nunnery to Master Adam Irnepurse, vicar
of Bossall.

The next we hear is that Sabina de Apelgarth,®
one of the nuns, had apostatized. Robert Picker-
ing, acting as vicar-general of Archbishop Green-
field, wrote on 24 April 1310 to the prioress and
convent instructing them to receive her back, as
she was returning in a state of penitence.

On Tuesday before the feast of St. Nicholas
1310! Euphemia the prioress, feeling no longer
capable of ruling the house, resigned, and on 12
December, Alice de Barton, a nun of the house,
was elected prioress.

As a result ofa visitation in 1314," Archbishop
Greenfield ordered that before the feast of All
Saints each year a full account of the income
and expenditure should be made. No nuns in
good health were to be in the infirmary, while
the sick were to be tended as their illnesses
needed and means allowed.

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 566.

? Burton, Mon. Ebor. 268. Moxby was about a
mile and a half south of Marton. After the separa-
tion of the two houses, they appear to have had very
little connexion with each other.

* Ibid. * Ibid.

5 Archbishop Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 54.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 350.

7 Ibid. fol. 50. 8 Thid. fol. 574.

® Ibid. Greenfield, ii, fol. 92d.

” Ibid. fol. 101d, 1 Tbid. fol. 1008.

No corrodies, &c., were to be granted, or
boarders or girls over twelve taken without
special licence. In a subsequent letter of 12
August * the archbishop appointed Brothers
Benedict de Malton and Thomas de Hustwayt,
Friars minors, confessors to the nuns. Archbishop
Melton held a visitation of the house on 5 May
1318," and the next day sent a decretum to
the nuns. No fresh debts were to be incurred,
especially large ones, without the consent of the
wiser portion of the convent and the archbishop’s
special licence. As to the bread and ale called
“levedemete,” which the Friars minors were
accustomed to receive from the house, if it was
owed to them, it was to be given as due ; if not,
it was not to be given without the will of the
president.

Nuns who ought to keep convent were to do
so. ‘They were to enter and leave the dormitory
together. The cloister doors were to be well
kept by day, and locked in good time at night,
the prioress or sub-prioress having secure charge
of the keys. The nuns were not to go out of
the precincts of the monastery often, and were
not at any time to wander about the woods,
nor eat or gossip with brothers or other se-
culars.

The prioress was to take her meals in the
refectory, and be more frequently in the convent
than she had been, unless sickness hindered her.
She was to have a nun of honest conversation
associated with her, within and outside the
monastery, and a waiting-maid. She was to
conduct herself piously, without offensive rancour,
nor was she to follow her own will, but to make
use of the counsel of her sisters.

Nuns and other circumspect servants and
guardians were to be appointed in granges and
offices, for the benefit of the house. Relatives
were not to visit the nuns for a longer period
than two days. Until the archbishop directed
otherwise, Sabina de Apelgarth was to be re-
moved from all offices she held, to keep convent
continuously, at divine service, and not to go
out of the monastery on any account. No one
convicted of incontinence, or de Japsu carnis, was
to remain in office.

In 13224 came the dispersion ot the nuns,
owing to the raid of the Scots. On 17 Novem-
ber Sabina de Apelgarth and Margaret de Neusom
were sent by the archbishop to Nun Monk-
ton, Alice de Barton, the prioress, to Swine,
Joan de Barton and Joan de ‘Toucotes to
Nun Appleton, Agnes de Ampleford and Agnes
de Jarkesmill to Nunkeeling, and Joan de

” Thid.
“ Thid. fol. 240.

8 Ibid. Melton, fol. 226.

239

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Brotherton and Joan Blaunkfront® to Ham-
pole.’

The dispersion cannot have lasted long, for on
24 January 1325’ Joan de Barton appeared
before the archbishop, and for certain lawful
reasons resigned. The reason for resignation is
apparent from a penance enjoined upon her for
having been guilty super /apsu carnis with the
chaplain, Laurence de Systeford.!® The details
of the penance imposed upon her, as to fasting
and prayers, are in accordance with what was
usual in these cases. She was to be shut up in
a room by herself, and on no account to go out-
side the convent precincts for a year, and not to
wear the black veil. The penance is dated
3 September 1325.

A visitation held in March 1327-8 9 resulted
in a series of injunctions to the nuns. As the
house was heavily in debt, corrodies, pensions,
&c., were not to be granted without the arch-
bishop’s special licence. Some of the necessary
buildings were ruinous and unroofed, especially
the bake-house, brew-house, &c. These were
to be repaired as soon as possible.

The nuns for the future were to wear mantles,
tunics, and other garments, according to the
statutes of the rule.

Sabina de Apelgarth, for ‘certain reasons,’
until the archbishop ordered otherwise, was to be
removed from all office and administration in the
house, she was to keep convent in divine service,
at fit times and places, and not to go outside
the doors, nor was she to send or receive letters,
&c. Joan Blaunkfront’s penance was relaxed.

This decretum was followed on 26 March” by
the confirmation of a new prioress (Joan de
Toucotes) in place of Sabina de Apelgarth, whose
misconduct had led to her removal from office by
the archbishop.”!

On 16 January 1423* Alice Dautry, who
had been prioress for twenty-six years, resigned
owing to feebleness of body, and Joan Lassels
was unanimously elected her successor per modum
inspiracionis Spiritus Sancti by Emma de Holder-

** Pope Clement VI, 18 July 1345, gave orders for
Joan Blankefrontes, Augustinian nun of Molseby, who
had left her order, to be reconciled to it. Cai. Papal
Letters, iii, 188.

** On a slip between fol. 241 and fol. 242 1s the
original letter from the Prioress and convent of Mun-
keton (Nun Monkton), of the order of St. Benedict, to
Archbishop Melton acknowledging the archbishop’s
letter as to the reception of two nuns of Molseby
the order of St. Augustine,

“York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 244.

® Ibid. fol. 2444. ® Ibid. fol. 2484.

® Tbid. fol. 2484.

" Though in the decretum her ‘removal’ from all
office is spoken of, it is said in the entry of the con-
firmation of her successor’s election that she resigned,
Probably she was constrained to do so. York Archi-
epis. Reg. Melton, fol. 248, 249.

* Ibid. fol. 3245.

nesse, sub-prioress, Alice Goldesburgh, Alice Dau-
try, Margaret Grene, Agnes Hancotes, Alice
Moreton, Agnes Butteler, and Margaret Skypton,
nuns of the house.

The house was supervised by the commis-
sioners on 28 May 1536 and suppressed on
4 August following.*? There were then
eight sisters, and Elizabeth Warde, one of
the nuns, held a corrody granted her by the
prioress and convent for life. The commissioners
gave her 66s. 8d., for which sum she released all
claim she had in the corrody. She was impotens
et surda, and in consideration of her poverty and
feebleness the money was paid over to a certain
honest man, who then and there pledged his
faith to take care of Elizabeth Warde for life.

Among other payments made was that of 4d.
to two men for the carriage of the evidences of
the late priory to the house of a certain ‘ Magister
Moyses.’

PrioressEs OF Moxsy

Euphemia, occurs 1304-5, resigned 1310”

Alice de Barton, confirmed 1310,7° occurs
el

Joan de Barton, resigned 1324 *

Sabina de Apelgarth succeeded,” resigned
ron

Joan de Toucotes, confirmed 1328 3!

Elizabeth Nevill,” died 1397 *

Alice Dautry, confirmed 31 Jan. 1397-8,3*
resigned 1423 *

Joan Lassels, confirmed 1423-4

Alice Moreton, died 1465 %”

Margaret Skipton, elected 1465 ®

Agnes de Tute, confirmed 1475 *°

Philippa Jennyson, confirmed 1530-1," last
prioress

* For these particulars see K.R. Aug. Views of
Accts. bdle. 17. In 1527 the clear annual value of
the house was returned at £33 155. (Subs. R.
[P.R.O.], bdle. 64, no. 303). According to the Valor
Eccl. v, 87, it was only £26 25. 10d.

On 24 July 1475 Robert Shirwyn, pewterer, of
York, bequeathed to Katherine his sister, a nun of
Moxby, 65. 8¢d.; and to the house of the nuns ‘in
vasis electris’ to the value of ros. Reg. York. Wills,
iv, fol. gt.

* Pat. 32 Edw. I, m. 27.

** York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 1014.

*6 Ibid.

7 Ibid. Melton, fol. 240.

* Ibid. fol. 244.

* Dugdale, Mon. Ang. iv, 566 ; and see above.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 24.86,

Ibid.
re ‘Was the next prioress,’ Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv,
566.

* York Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 21 5.

* Tbid.

* Ibid. fol. 3244.

* Thid. fol. 456.°

* Ibid. G Nevill, fol. 172.

“ Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 607.

6 Thid.
* Ibid.

240

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

HOUSE OF AUSTIN CANONS

OF THE ORDER OF THE TEMPLE OF THE Lorp aT JERUSALEM

59. THE PRIORY OF NORTH
FERRIBY

According to Tanner, and others who have
followed him, the house of North Ferriby was
founded as a preceptory of Knights Templars,
and after the suppression of the Templars became
an ordinary priory of canons of the order of St.
Augustine, and so continued till the suppression
of the lesser monasteries! ‘TTorre’s statement ? is
as follows : ‘ North Ferriby. Priory of St. Marie’s.
The house or priory of N. Ferriby was founded
by William de Vescy. At first for three brethren
of the Order of the Temple of St. John Jeru-
salem in England, to which number he added
five more, which completed eight brethren for
the future, when he gave them the church of N.
Ferriby to be appropriated to them. The com-
mon seal of the priory of North Ferriby was thus,
when William, prior, and brethren thereof,
granted to Robt. Robelott a certain toft in
Austelmerly and an acre in Elveley.” Then
follows a rude sketch of a seal, similar to that
figured in The Temple Church (Bell’s Cathedral
Ser.), 62, but with no legend. In reality these
canons were in no way connected with the
Knights Templars. There were at Jerusalem
two ‘Temples.’ The one, called the Temple
of Solomon, was a palace, and from it the
Knights Templars derived their name. The
other, the Temple of the Lord, was a church
served by a community of Austin canons under
an abbot; it was to this abbey that North
Ferriby was a cell.?

Archbishop Giffard wrote, on 25 September
1270,‘ to the rector of Kirk Ella, and the bailiff
of Beverley, that he had heard that the Prior of
Ferriby, of the order of the Temple of the Lord,
proposed to go to foreign parts by direction of his
abbot, and meant to sell the corn and stock or
the house, and to take away two-thirds for the
cost of his journey, leaving only one-third for the
sustenance of the brethren at home. If this were
done the property of the house would be wholly
insufficient for maintaining the brethren and
guests, for which it was specially assigned. The
commissioners were ordered to admonish the
prior either to abandon the project and look
elsewhere for the expenses of his journey, or to
take a less sum, as they might appoint, in order
that the archbishop might not have to put a stop

' Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 589.

? Torre MSS. pt. ii, 1094.

® Engl. Hist. Rev. xxvi, 498-501.

* Archbishop Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 251.

to his journey, or the brothers be driven to beg
in a manner not seemly. ‘The commissioners
were also to enjoin the brethren to take good
care of their business matters and property, and
not to consent to the prior’s proposal. If the prior
or the brethren disregarded the admonition, com-
pulsion was to be used by suspension or excom-
munication,

In March 1271-2 ° Brother Walter de Sancto
Eadmundo, claiming to be (qui se dicit) Prior of
Ferriby, complained that the archbishop’s official
had issued certain mandates in which it was im-
plied that he was an intruder and an ungodly
person, "The archbishop desired the Dean of
York, in his stead, to hear the complaint, and to
decide what ought to be done.

Archbishop Melton sent on 29 September
1334° a monition to the Prior and brothers
of the house of the Temple of the Lord of
Ferriby, of his intention to visit the house on 14
May following, but there does not appear to be
any record of the visitation itself. Fifteen years
later there is evidence of the presence of the
Black Death.’ The sickness itself is not alluded
to, but there can be little doubt that it accounts
for the fact that on 24 July 1349 Brother John
de Beverley was elected prior, in succession to
Walter de Hesill, deceased, and that the very
next entry in the register records the election
of John de Preston as prior on 3 August follow-
ing, in succession to Brother John de Beverley,
deceased—an interval of ten days only between
the elections.

On 27 August 1372% Archbishop ‘Thoresby
confirmed a provision made by John, the prior,
and the convent, for their late prior John de
Hedon. First of all he was to sit in fronte chori,
in the second stall after the prior, on that side,
when he wished to attend, but he was excused
from all keeping of quire, and also of chapter,
unless summoned for the business of the house,
and the good of his soul, according to the disci-
pline of the rule. He was to have a general
licence for going in and out of the priory and its
precincts. He was to have a competent and
honest chamber within the priory, cum oratorio,
chiminio, et privato, to be kept up at the cost of
the house. If he were ill, or became blind, he
was to have a canon to minister to him, ‘ tam in
missis quam aliis horis divinis.’ He was to have
three loaves daily, two of them de meliori pascu

5 Tbid. 66.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 291.
7 Ibid. Zouch, fol. 1974.

® Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 229.

3 241 31

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

and the third de secundarie. He was also to have
a /agena and a half of the better ale of the house,
together with full secondary messes from the
kitchen after the prior, both at noon (ad nonam)
and at supper, such as two canons received, in
the hall or refectory. He was to have a servant
at his choice, assigned him by the prior, at the
charges of the house. He was also to have five
marks of silver yearly, for his clothing, and
further he was to have every year 4,000 turves
from the moor of Inclemore for fuel.

In 1380-1 ° there were, besides the prior, five
canons.

On 18 July 135961° Pope Boniface IX con-
ferred on John de Thornton, priest, ‘ Augusti-
nian canon of the priory of Ferriby of the order
of the brethren of the Temple,’ the dignity of
papal chaplain. Five years later, on 13 February
1401," the same pope granted a dispensation to
‘John Marton, canon of the priory of North
Ferriby, of the Order of the Temple of our Lord
of Jerusalem, under the rule of St. Augustine,’
who made his profession in North Ferriby and
was in priest’s orders, to hold any offices, &c.,
even principal, of his order.

The property of the priory seems to have
consisted of lands in the immediate neighbour-
hood,’* but nothing of importance except the
church of North Ferriby, which was appropriated
to the priory, one of the canons being usually
appointed to the vicarage. In 152614 the
clear annual value of the priory was returned as
£48 1s. 7d. According to the Valr Ecclesias-
ticus® the total annual revenues amounted to
£95 115. 74d., the reprises to £35 10s. 54d.,
leaving a clear annual value of £60 15. 2d.

Just at the end of its history there was a very
quick changing about of priors, suggesting an
endeavour to secure as much in the way of pen-
sions as possible. On 5 June 1532 18 a com-
mission was issued to confirm the election of
Brother John Bawdewynne, late vicar of Ferriby,
who had been elected prior vice Thomas Burgh,
resigned. On 20 June!? Thomas Burgh, the
ex-prior, was instituted to the vicarage of Ferriby.
On 24 September 15348 John Bawdewynne
had resigned, and Brother Thomas Androwe,
canon of the house, was elected. All three were
living at the suppression, John Bawdewynne

* Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 63, no. 12.

1° Cal. of Papal Letters, iv, 297.

1 Tbid. v, 397.

1? Other instances of the use of this full title occur
down to the Dissolution, though the mother abbey
had long disappeared.

13 These are enumerated in the Ministers’ Accounts,
28 Hen. VIII ; printed Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 590.

™ State Papers (P.R.O.), 1526 (return by Brian
Higdon).

8 Valor. Eccl. v, 128.

% York Archiepis. Reg. Lee, fol. 23.

Thid. fol. 230. 8 Thid. fol. 254.

having changed places with Thomas Androwe
and become prior for the second time as late as
7 June 1535,!° when Androwe was assigned a
yearly pension™® of £3 6s. 8d., together with
victuals for himself and a servant, guandam par-
luram vocatam M’ Riddleston parlor with a cham-
ber constructed over it, and a certain chamber
contigua valvis de Ferribie, and every winter unum
le chawdrey of coals, and pasturage and hay for
two horses, &c.

John Bawdewynne secured a pension in 1534
of £5 6s. 8d., &c. Thomas Burgh had also
secured one dated 22 June 1532, which was
commuted at the Dissolution for an annual sum
of £7 65.

The house was visited on 24 May 1536 and
suppressed on 13 August following ;*! there were
six canons and thirty-four servants and other
boys.

Drs. Leghand Layton record under ‘superstitio’”
‘hic colitur Sanctus Gatianus.’ ”

Priors oF NortH FErrIsy

Simon, occurs 1240

Walter de St. Edmund, occurs 1270," 1272

Robert, occurs 1284 8

William, occurs 1300-1

Walter, occurs 1315,” 1327 7

Walter de Hesill, died 1349 ”

John de Beverley, elected 24 July 1349,%
died #!

John de Preston, elected 3 August 1349”

John de Hedon, resigned 1372 *

John, elected 1372 (? John de Killom),
died 1389 *

William Anlaby, succeeded John de Killom,
elected 1389, * occurs 1397 *”

John Hoton, occurs 1425,°8 1426 *

Thomas Beverley, died 1498 ”

* Tbid. fol. 274. ” bid. fol. 294.

" K.R. Aug. Views of Accts. bdle. 17.

” L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, 137.

“ Archbishop Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 66.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 591.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 32 ; Plac. de
Banco, Trin. 2 Edw. I, m. 51.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 590.

* De Banco R. (P.R.O. Lists), 756.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 1974.

* Thid. >! Ibid. *? Ibid.
* Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 229. * Tbid.
* Tbid. Arundel, fol. 18. * Thid.

7 Baildon’s MS. Notes.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 59.

39 Baildon’s MS. Notes.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, 154. On
27 Mar. 1449 Archbishop Kemp had issued a
commission to Magr. Robert Dobbis to receive the
resignation of the Prior of Ferriby (ibid. Kemp, fol.
133), but there is no record of the election which
must have followed.

242

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Thomas Cotingham, confirmed 1498 #

John Thornton, confirmed 1513,*? occurs 20
November 1516 *

Thomas Burgh, 1521,** occurs 16 August
1529, 10 February 1531-2 *

John Howlme, occurs 3 July 1532 *

HOUSES

60. THE ABBEY OF COVERHAM

Towards the end of the reign of Henry II,
Helewise, daughter and heiress of Ranulph de
Glanville, chief justice of England, founded a
monastery of Premonstratensian canons at
Swainby in the parish of Pickhill,” with the
consent of her son and heir, Waleran, then
living. She died in 1195 and was buried at
Swainby, but afterwards her remains were
removed to Coverham and buried in the chapter
house. The first foundation at Swainby is said
to have been in the year 1190, but there is
evidently an error in the date in the account of
the foundation of the house, printed by Dugdale
from a roll in St. Mary’s Tower, York,? for
Henry II, who confirmed the gifts made to the
canons of Swainby, died in July 1189. There
is, however, no reason to doubt the other state-
ments in the account. The roll goes on to relate
that Ralph the son of Robert, lord of Middle-
ham, removed the canons to Coverham,? and
granted them the church of Coverham, and

" York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, 154.

“ Ibid. Bainbridge, fol. 434.

* Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 196.

“ Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 590.

“ Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.) no. 193.

Thid. no. 195 (as ‘Thomas’ only).

“ Ibid. no. 201.

8 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 590.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Lee, fol. 254. °° Ibid.

5! Tbid. fol. 284. Dugdale (Mon. Angi. vi, 590)
gives 6 June 1532 as the date of John Bawdewynne’s
confirmation as prior for the first time. If this is cor-
rect, he and John Howlme, whose name as prior
occurs on 3 July 1532, would seem to have been one
and the same person.

® Thid.

'Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 920. * Ibid. no. i.

®Coverham is 11 miles from Swainby in a direct
line, and considerably farther by any possible road.
The connexion of the canons of Swainby with
Coverham before they were moved there is indicated
by the foundation gift of Coverham Church to the
canons. The site of the original monastery at
Swainby is marked ‘Site of Priory’ on the one-inch
map of the Ordnance Survey, 1870. In 1840 it was
said that ‘no traces of the building now remain,
except in the unevenness of the ground where it is
supposed to have stood.’—White, Hist. Gazetteer and
Dir. of the E. &F N. Ridings, 569.

John Bawdewynne, confirmed 1532, resigned
I 49
Thomas Androwe, confirmed 24 September

1534,°° resigned 7 June 1535
John Bawdewynne (second time), succeeded

7 June 1535”

OF THE PREMONSTRATENSIAN ORDER

many lands and tenements by fine in the king’s
court in 14 John (1212-13). ‘The charter of
Henry II is set out in full in an inspeximus of 22
Edward III * (1338-9), by which it appears that
Henry II confirmed the gifts described as those
of Waleran (Helewise’s son) to the church of
St. Mary of ‘Sweinesby ’ and the canons there.
These were the church of Coverham, the land of
Swainby, 16 acres in Kettlewell, with pasturage
there for 1,000 sheep and 40 beasts, with tithes
and lands elsewhere, all of which his mother had
given to the canons.

After the removal to Coverham in 1212, gifts
of land in several other places were made to the
canons, These are arranged in alphabetical
order by Burton.’ Besides their temporal
possessions, the church of Downholme was given
to them about 1300 by the Scropes of Bolton,
and the gift was confirmed by Archbishop
Corbridge, but no vicarage was ordained.®
They also became possessed, but when or by
whom it was given is unknown, of a moiety of
the church of Kettlewell. It must have been
early in their history, for according to Burton’
the canons presented to this moiety in 1229,
although in the printed volume of Archbishop
Gray’s Register® no mention is made of their
presentation, and it issaid that the patronage was
in dispute. The other moiety of the church
belonged to the patronage of the Lords Gray of
Rotherfield, and on 4 December 1344° this
moiety was appropriated by the archbishop’s
authority to the abbey, and a perpetual vicar-
age with cure of souls was ordained in the
patronage of the abbot and convent. In 1388,
the moieties of the church having become
united in the possession of Coverham, Archbishop
Alexander Nevill made a new appropriation of
Kettlewell to the abbey, reserving annual
pensions of 8s. 4d. to the archbishop, and 55. to
the Dean and Chapter of York. The vicar was
to have the rectorial mansion and £5 annually
from the abbot and convent.

Sedbergh Church was given to the abbey
by Sir Ralph le Scrope, and a perpetual vicarage
ordained there in 1332. The abbey also

‘Dugdale, loc. cit. no. ii. ° Mon. Ebor. 418-25.
®Tbid. 419. "Tbid. 420.

® Archbishop Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 20.

* Burton, op. cit. 420. ” Tbid.

243

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

possessed the church of Seaham in the bishopric
of Durham."

From a licence in mortmain granted by
Edward II in 1331-2,” it appears that the abbey
had been destroyed by the Scots, who had also
greatly impoverished its possessions.

In 1350 ¥ oneof the canons, John de Eboraco,
like many other religious in other houses, left his
monastery, without leave of his superior, in order
to visit Rome and obtain the general indul-
gence offered to those who went there for the
Jubilee. On 1 May 1351he obtained from Pope
Clement VI leave to return to his monastery
which he had left in the August previous.

In 1380-1," besides the abbot, who was taxed
at 15s. 9d., there were fifteen canons taxed at
35. 4d. each, and one conversus taxed at 12d.

The list of the community in 1475 shows,
besides the abbot, sixteen canons and two
novices ;!° of the canons all held some office ; one
was parish priest, others were vicars of Kettlewell,
Sedbergh, Thoralby, Redmire, and Downholme ;
the obedientiaries mentioned are sub-prior, sub-
cellarer (neither prior nor cellarer is entered),
cantor, succentor, sacrist, sub-sacrist, circator,
fraterer, and storekeeper. On the occasion of
Bishop Redman’s visitation in 14.78, the abbey of
the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary at
Coverham was recorded to be a daughter of the
abbey of Newhouse.”® At this visitation one of
the canons confessed incontinence, another
accused of the same offence was acquitted, and a
third, about whose life, while vicar of Sedbergh,
suspicion had arisen, was unanimously given a
good character. Silence and other ceremonial
observances were not well kept, but the bishop
evidently had a good opinion of the abbot, John
Bromfeld, as he appointed him his sub-delegate
for the north.” A visitation in 1482 }® revealed
no faults of importance, but in 1486 one canon
was punished for incontinence, another, appar-
ently a novice, had abandoned the order and
was expelled, and the sub-prior was rebuked for
laxity and not rising for matins.’? Two years
later, in December 1488, John Bromfeld
resigned the abbacy *® and John Askogh was
elected in his place. The ex-abbot was assigned
a pension of 20 marks, a room, a liberal allow-
ance of food, two attendants, and the use of the
abbot’s horses; he was also exempted from
attendance in quire, and was allowed to visit his
friends when he chose.”1. The generous provision
made for the ex-abbot proved demoralizing, and

" Burton, op. cit. 425 (a wrong pagination for 421).
4 Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 921, no. ii.

3 Cal. of Papal Letters, iti, 386.

4 Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 63, no. 12.

® Gasquet, Coll. Angl-Premonstratensiana (Roy.
Hist. Soc.), 310.

Ibid. 311. “VTbid. 312.

® Ibid. 314. Ibid. 316.

"Ibid. 60, 319. "Ibid. 69.

in 14917 Bishop Redman found that he had
incurred by his demerits certain punishment
which the bishop remitted on promise of amend-
ment. Another canon was also restored to the
position which he had forfeited, and the visitor
gave great praise to Abbot Askogh for his good
rule, and especially for the way in which he had
restored the buildings. At his visitations in
1494, 1497, and 1500,” the bishop found the
abbey in excellent condition, the convent on the
last occasion thanking God that they had chosen
so good an abbot.

In 26 Henry VIII (1534-5) ™ the total value
of the abbey was £207 115. 8d., and the clear
annual value £160 18s. 3d. The temporalities
were wholly derived from property in Yorkshire,
and amounted to £116 145. 8d. (This included
£12 allowed for the site of the abbey and its
demesnes.) ‘The spiritualities were the churches
already named, viz., Coverham £20, Sedbergh
£41 10s, Downholme £7 10s, Kettlewell
£8 10s., and Seaham in Durham £13 Ios.

Among the reprises were alms” given for the
soul of Ralph, Earl of Westmorland, 205; and
40s. given to poor folk on Maundy Thursday,
according to ancient custom, in bread and red
and white herrings, and money to boys (pueris),
hermits, and other poor folk.

The gift of the church of Coverham to the
abbey involved the cure of souls in the parish,
and among the conventual leases relating to
Coverham there is an indenture dated g April
15307 between the Abbot and convent of
Coverham and fifty-two persons, mostly heads
of families in the parish, as to service in the
chapel of Horsehouse. It witnesses that the
abbot and convent..‘is fully agreyd y' a
Brother off y® foresayd monastery off Coverham
shall remane and mynyster the servyce off God,
y' isto say Matyns, Messe, and Evynsong, at y°
chapell off Sanct Botulphe at Horshows, except
syche days as hayth bene accustomyd before
tyme to cum downe to y° parysche chyrche, at y°
commandment off y* aforesayd Abbot or Curatt.
So y' y° dewtes belongyng to the y® parysche
chyrche be no thyng mynesched. Yt is agreyd
y' y* days off custom is Cristymes day, Candyll-
mes day, Palme Sunday, Ester day, Weit Sonday,
Trynyte Sonday, and the dedication day, wt
other days necessary for y* well off y* chyrche,
and helthe off y‘ sowles, and that y* aforesayd
abbot and convent schall pay 3erely to the afore
sayd Brother iiij nobles off y* party, and the
aforesayd nabores and y" successores schall pay
3erely to y fore sayd brother iiij marcs, at fower
tymes in y* 3ere, by evyn porcons, by fower
men apontyd by y* sayd abbott & brotheres,’
&c.

"Ibid. 322. *Ibid. 324, 327, 328.
* Burton, op. cit. 425 (for 421).
*Thid. 422.

* Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.) no. 142.

244

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

In the Minister’s Accounts of Christopher
Mansell for the year 27-8 Henry VIII,” the
demesne lands of Coverham were valued at
£13 195. 10d.; they included a close called
“Cristecrosse’’ anda water-mill. The temporali-
ties, which were derived from lands in a number
of parishes, mostly in Richmondshire or the
neighbourhood, realized £81 55. 74., while the
spiritualities, comprising the rectories of Cover-
ham (£26), of Sedbergh (£50), of Downholme
(£7 16s, 8d.) of Kettlewell (£10 95. 4d.), and
Seaham (£14 135. 4d.), reached £108 195. 4d.

There were reprises, {6 to the chaplain of
Redmire, 100s. to the chaplain of Thoralby, and
the same to the chaplains of Downholme and
Coverham, the latter being also styled parish
curate. It is said that nothing was paid to the
chaplain celebrating in the chapel of St. Botolph,
called Horsehouse, beyond 35. 4d. paid by the
inhabitants of Coverdale of the 26s. 8d. annually
due, according to the agreement between them
and the abbot and convent, because the Prior of
Coverham had paid it.

Drs. Layton and Legh ** recorded that the
abbot and convent had the iron girdle (cingulum)
of Marie Nevell offered to women in child-bed,
and that the abbot Christopher Rokesby was
‘vehemently suspected’ of incontinence.

ABBOTs OF COVERHAM

Philip, occurs 1202”

Conan, occurs 1222-31

John, occurs 1252 3

William, occurs 1262 *

Nicholas, occurs 1287 *

John, occurs 1300,* also 1307 **
Bernard, occurs circa 1320%

William de Aldeburg, confirmed 1331 *”
Gilbert, occurs between 1345 and 1348 *8
Robert, occurs 1351 *°

Elias, occurs 1371 *

John, occurs 1406, 1414,% 1415 ”

7 Mins. Accts. Yorks. 27-8 Hen. VIII, 119, m. 5.

70. and P. Hen. VIII, x, p. 137.

Yorks. Fines, Fokn (Surt. Soc.), 72.

® Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 34.

5! Tbid. * Tbid. % Thid.

York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, slip betw. fol.
59 and fol. 60. % Baildon’s MS. Notes.

3° Occurs in a notice dated ‘apud Sanctam Agatham
die Lune in crastino Sancti Bartholomei’ in conjunc-
tion with John, Abbot of Newhouse, and Thomas,
Abbot of Egglestone, recording the election of Nigel
de Ireby as Abbot of Easby, in succession to Abbot
Philip, resigned, but no year is mentioned. York
Archiepis, Reg. Melton, fol. 445.

7 Ibid. fol. 452.

® Cal. Pat. 1345-8, p. 453.

® Assize R, 1129, m. 17.

“ Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 34.

“Cott. MS. Nero, D. iii, fol. 52.

“ Baildon, loc. cit. “Thid.

Cuthbert de Rydemer, confirmed 21 May
1414," occurs 1426 and 1430

Gauden, occurs 1435," 1437”

John Bromfeld or Brownflete, confirmed
1470," resigned 1488

John Askogh, confirmed 1488 4

Thomas Sides, confirmed 1511 *°

Christopher Salley, confirmed 1519”

Christopher Halton, confirmed 1521 *

Christopher Rokesby, 1528 ©

61. THE ABBEY OF ST. AGATHA,
EASBY

The abbey of St. Agatha, Easby, was founded
by Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, in
1152.1 Another generous benefactor was
Thorphin son of Robert de Burgo, whose
daughters, Maud and Agnes, gave the churches
of Manfield and Warcop (Westmorland).?

In the year 1284 a complaint was made by
John de Hellebeck and John de Bellerby that
the abbot, John, and his fellow canons had
deprived them of the use of a mill at Bolton-on-
Swale. The abbot claimed an annual rental of
2s. from the mill, which he had asa gift from
Robert de Hellebeck. The jury found that the
abbot’s servants had stripped off the iron and
other instruments of the mill, so rendering it
useless; The verdict was given against the
abbot, and the damages were assessed at 105."*
On 28 September 1294 the abbot, with the
heads of a number of other religious houses,
received a grant of protection for one year, which
was renewed on 10 December 1295, the grant
being made to these persons because they had
given a tenth to the king.?

® York Archiepis, Reg. Bowett, fol. 304.

“ Yorks. D. (Yorks, Arch. Rec.), 141.

“ Baildon’s MS. Notes.

“York Archiepis. Reg. G. Nevill, fol. 121.

“Ibid. Rotherham, i, fol. 58.

“Tbid. Bainbridge, fol. 21.

5° Tbid. Wolsey, fol. 424.

‘\Tbid. fol. 544.

* Dugdale, op. cit. vi, gzo. (On 6 Apr. 1586, a
witness in a lawsuit, whose memory extended for sixty
years, mentioned two abbots, Horseman and Raper,
of Coverham, as within his recollection. It would
seem that those names were probably aliases for
Halton and Rokesby, respectively. Other witnesses
mentioned Abbot Horseman.—Exch. Dep. East. 28
Eliz. no. 3.)

' Dugdale, Mon. Ang. vi, 927 ; Easby Chartulary,
Egerton MS. 2827, fol. 2.

7 Egerton MS. 2827, fol. 2-6. Warcop Church
seems to have been transferred to the Premonstraten-
sian abbey of Shap in Westmorland. Valr Eccl.
(Rec. Com.), v, 293-4.

72 Speight, Romantic Richmondshire, 108.

5 Pat. 24 Edw. I, m. 21-2.

245

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

In 1301 the abbot was feeble, and on 28
January he received a letter from the king,
because ‘of his debility,’ nominating as_ his
attorneys for three years two of his fellow canons,
Thomas de Catering and Roger de Wautz.*
The abbot’s name is not given, but it is evident
that it was John de Novo Castro, who had been
abbot for forty years.

In 1309 the Abbot of St. Mary’s complained
that ‘Roger ® the Abbot of St. Agatha’s, Robert
de Latton, Hugh de Laton, Thomas de Cateryk,
William de Langeton, John de Byscopton, and
‘John Belle, canons of St. Agatha’s’ with many
others, carried away his goods at Bolton,
‘Bereford,’ and ‘ Apelby,’ co. York, whilst he
was under the king’s protection.®

There must have been achange in the abbacy
soon after this, for on 12 May 1313 ‘A. Abbot
of St. Agatha’s’ is one of a number of witnesses
named in a royal confirmation of one of the
charters of Egglestone.” This ¢ A’ does not occur
in any list of the heads of the abbey. There
seems at this time to have been a considerable
amount of unrest and change in the headship of
the house.® In fact, in the year 1311 there were
living the Abbot William Burelle and three ex-
abbots, Richard de Bernyngham, William de
Ergom, and Roger de Walda. This we
know from a very curious story related by
Whitaker? In 1311 Robert de Eglisclive,
who, with his father and grandfather, had long
detained from the abbot and canons 220 acres
of moorland in Barden, on examining the abbey
charters acknowledged the wrong and made
restitution, The dispute had continued during
the time of five abbots, the four above-named
and John de Novo Castro. Eglisclive sought
and obtained absolution, but he was anxious for
the souls of his ancestors, and he persuaded the
abbot and the three ex-abbots to go to the graves
of his father, his grandfather, and his mother
(Emma), and pronounce the sentence of absolu-
tion over them all. In consideration of this
gracious act, Eglisclive released to the abbey the
moorland in question according to the boundaries
set forth in the charter.

In 1316 and 13177° ‘protection’ was again
granted to the abbot, and in 1320 he was
appointed one of several to audit the accounts of
the collectors of a ‘tenth’ for the Scotch war,
which had been levied in the tenth year of the
king’s reign and ‘paid to the Scots’ by reason of
the truce entered into with them.

‘ Pat. 29 Edw. I, m. 31.

* This would be Clarkson’s additional abbot ‘ante
1311’ (Richmond, 375).

° Pat. 3 Edw. II, m. 30d.

” Ibid. 6 Edw. IL, pt. ii, m. ro. 5 See list postea,

° Richmondshire, i, 111; Egerton MS, 2827, fol. 239.

Some time before the reign or Edward IIT
Thomas de Burton, the lineal descendant of the
founder Roald, sold his patrimony to Henry,
Lord Scrope of Bolton,’ and with it passed the
patronage of the abbey, the Lords Scrope being
afterwards the reputed founders."

During the reign of Edward III, c. 1330, the
donations previously conferred upon the abbey
received the royal confirmation. These donations
included the gifts of the founder, of Roger de
Mowbray, Alan Bygod, the Scropes, and many
others..4 In 1380 licence was granted to
Richard le Scrope to concede to the canons his
manor of Brompton-on-Swale,® and then in
1392 or 1393 (16 Richard I)" the community
was considerably enlarged by the same benefactor,
who received the king’s licence to bestow upon
the house an annual rental of £150. This bene-
faction was made for the purpose of maintain-
ing ten additional canons and two secular priests,
and they were to celebrate divine service for the
good estate of the king and his heirs during their
lives, &c., and also to support twenty-two poor
men in the said abbey for ever.!”

Just before this donation the famous armorial
controversy of 1385-90 had been waged between
the Scropes and the Grosvenors. During an
expedition into Scotland in 1385 Lord Scrope, it
appears, carried his accustomed arms, ‘azure a
bend or,’ when to his amazement he found the
same arms borne by Sir Robert Grosvenor.
Scrope challenged Grosvenor’s right, and a suit
was commenced, at first before the Lord High
Commissioner, and afterwards before John of
Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. The evidence
brought forward throws much light on the
history of the times, and it gives us a glimpse
inside the monastic church. One of the chief
witnesses was the Abbot John,!” whose evidence
was very valuable to the cause of Lord Scrope.'8

At first it was decided that Grosvenor was to
difference the arms by the addition of a silver
border.” This Sir Robert refused to do, and

% Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. 1853, p. 321. Inthe
Monasticon this transaction is said to have taken place
during the reign of Edw. III. The writer of the
Assoc. Society’s paper is very emphatic that it was
before (see p. 322). See also vol. for 1869, p. 60.

3 Lawton, Relig. Houses, 96.

“ Ibid. Clarkson, Richmond, 349; Pat. 3 Edw. III,
pt. i, m. 6.

* Pat. 3 Ric. II, pt. iii, m. 17.

° 1392, Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. 1853, p. 322.

” Clarkson, op. cit. 355 from Pat. 16 Ric. II, pt.
lil, m. Io.

“4 Another important witness was the Abbot of
Selby. The famous stained glass shield which he
mentioned as existing in his abbey : azure a bend or,
and which played sucha prominent part in the scttle-
ment, has recently been identified. It is in a
curiously confused condition.

® Assoc, Archit. Soc. Rep. 1853, pp. 324-6.

Longstaffe, Wbemelies. voles ves

246

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

made an appeal to the king, who declared that
Grosvenor was not entitled to the arms at all.
Grosvenor then threw the blame upon his coun-
sellors, and sought the pardon of Lord Scrope,
which was readily granted, including the heavy
costs.”

This Lord Scrope, who during his life had so
greatly benefited the abbey, added to his benefac-
tions in the will which he made in 1400,?! the
provisions of which were carried out after his
death in 1402. He bequeathed, inter alia, a
cup with a cover, which had been presented to
him by the Lord Prince,” two gilt candlesticks,
two gilt cruets, a chalice, a censer, a little gilt
bell, and an embroidered alb, amice and stole.”4
A second cup was bequeathed to Lord Roger,
the heir, and he in 1403 left it to hisson Richard,
who in 1419 bequeathed it to Marmaduke
Lumley to be made into a chalice.”

In May 1424 a commission was issued to
Nicholas, Bishop of Dromore, to dedicate the
conventual church of St. Agatha.* Probably
there had been considerable alterations made
about the beginning of the 15th century, and
this episcopal act was a kind of re-dedication ;
or, as the churchyard is specially mentioned, the
matter may have been primarily concerned with
that.

In 1475 there were, besides the abbot, William
York, nineteen canons, of whom one was ‘ canon
of Garsdale,’ a parish in the West Riding where
the abbey had a grange with a chapel,” and two
others were vicars of Easby and of Manfield.”
Three years later, when Bishop Redman visited
the abbey,” there was practically no change in
the constitution of the house except that William
Ellerton, who at the earlier date had been cellarer,
was now abbot. He was ordered to deal gener-
ously with his predecessor, who had resigned :
presumably this was William York, but his
name does not appear in the list of canons. The
state of the abbey was excellent, and a similarly
satisfactory report was made at the next visita-
tion, in 1482, except that one of the brethren,
John Nym, had to be excommunicated for
apostasy.” John Nym evidently repented of
his bad ways, as we find him in 1488 acting as
‘circator.? William Ellerton was still abbot in

*” Longstaffe, loc. cit.

"1 Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. 1853, p. 323.

1 Clarkson, op. cit. 355.

*8 Probably Edward the Black Prince (Assoc. Archit.
Soc. Rep. 1853, p. 323).

* Ibid. ; Clarkson, op. cit. 355.

% Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. 1853, p. 323.

a At the beginning of the 14th century there
were two or more canons in residence at the chapel
of St. John the Baptist in Garsdale. Egerton MS.
2829, fol. 187.

Gasquet, Coll. Anglo - Premonstratensiana (Roy.
Hist. Soc.), no. 165.

* Ibid. no. 167-8. ” Tbid. no. 169.

1488 and had under him sixteen priest canons,
three deacons, and two novices.*° Bishop Red-
man found the general state of the house satis-
factory but had to imprison one of the canons
for continual disobedience ; another was suspected
of incontinence, but cleared himself by the oaths
of four compurgators. In 1491 one of the
brethren, William Bramptone, had to be sent
away from the house for various reasons ; at the
same time fault was found with the abbot for
the careless way in which the seal was kept, and
orders were given for the better instruction of
the younger members of the convent.*! Not long
after this visitation Abbot Ellerton died, and on
6 March 1492 Bishop Redman, by authority of
the father-Abbot of Newhouse, superintended an
election at St. Agatha’s, when William Clyntes,
the sub-cellarer, was unanimously elected.”
Clyntes, however, died within a year of his
appointment,*? and on 6 February 1493 William
Lynghard was elected. A visitation in 1494
showed a certain laxity in the observance of the
rules of the order,** but neither on this occasion
nor in 1497 * were any grievous faults dis-
covered. At the last recorded visitation, how-
ever, in 1500, Canon Thomas Bukler, who
was acting as vicar of Manfield, was found to
have broken the rule by making a will, disposing
of property as his own which of right belonged to
the abbey. With this exception the state of the
house was satisfactory.*®

Various grants were made to the canons from
time to time for the purpose of enabling them to
give relief to the poor. Once a week they were
to distribute to five such people as much meat
and drink as cost £3 15s. I1d. per annum,
This charity had been founded ‘for the soul of
John Romaine,’ Archdeacon of Richmond.** For
the same benefactor they provided also 155. a
year to be similarly expended on one poor person
‘every day,’ and the abbey was to give to ten
poor people on the anniversary of the archdeacon’s
death a meal of the value of 10d., and to various
chaplains the sum of 10s. on that day. Another
charity provided for the giving to one pauper
every day a loaf of bread called ‘ Payseloffe,’ or
‘ Loaf of Peace,’ together with a flagon of ale and
a mess of food, from the feast of All Souls to the
feast of Circumcision each year, the sum provided
being £1 6s. 8d. On St. Agatha’s Day £4 was
to be distributed in corn and salted fish to the
poor and indigent, and a similar distribution was
to be made on Maundy Thursday and the two
following days.”

% Ibid. no. 171. | Ibid. no. 173.

* Thid. 62. 33 Ibid. 101.
3 Tbid. 177. * Ibid. 179.
6 Ibid. 182.

364 These alms were performed in return for the
gift of the manor of Stanghow; Egerton MS.
2827, fol. 259.

37 Clarkson, op. cit. 351.

247

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

An interesting document has been handed
down from the year 1534—interesting because
drawn up just before the Dissolution, and also
because it shows the friendly relations existing
between the abbey and the Scrope family. In
1523 Lord Scrope died. On 2 August of the
next year the abbey authorities issued this char-
ter: ‘Be it known unto all people present and
to come, that we, Robert, the abbot of the
monasterie of our blessed Lady S$. Marie and
Saynt Agatha, virgyne and martyre, nye unto
Rychmonde, of the order of Premonstratense,
have recevede the day of making hereof the
Rt. Hon. John Lord Scrope of Bolton as our
veray trewe and undoubted founder of our said
monasterye, with procession and such other
solempnitie and ceremonies as doth perteyne and
belong thereunto, according as our predecessors
have heretofore at all times receyvede his noble
ancestours, as founders of the same: Grantinge
unto the sayde John Lord Scrope of Bolton, and
his heires for ever, by these presents, as much as
in use is, not only to be partakers of our praers,
suffragies, and other devoute and meritorious actes
and good deids, but also all other customes,
dueties, pleasours, and comodites, which dothe
apperteyne and belonge unto the just title and
right ofa founder, and as haith bene accustom-
ede and done by our predecessours unto his
auncestors, our founders heretofore. In witness
whereof, we, the said Abbot and Convent, have
put our seale to these presents the Seconde day
of Auguste, in the 26" yere of the reigne of our
most drede Sovereigne Lord King Henr the
tb > 38

It was in the following year that the Act was
passed— larch, 1§35—for dissolving the smaller
monasteries. The visitors, Legh and Layton,
found a considerable amount of immorality at
Easby, as they said: ‘5 sod., 1 incon., 2 seek
release, founder, Lord Scrope, rents £200.’
St. Agatha’s came, therefore, under the Act.

The date of the dissolution of St. Agatha’s is
variously given. Clarkson says it took place in
1535, being surrendered by ‘Robert Bampton,
last abbot, and seventeen canons.’ 4? The house
appears in the list of ‘ Monasteries under £200’
in 1536.“ The Dissolution had practically taken
place before 22 September 1536, for on that
date Chr. Lasselles offered to the Treasurer and
Court of Augmentations the fine of £600 ® ¢ for
S. Agathes, let to Lord Scrope for £300.’

The canons at St. Agatha’s did not take the
Dissolution without resistance, however. On
22 February 1537 Henry VII wrote to the
Duke of Norfolk that he was to ‘see to the

8 Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. 1853, pp. 325-6; Long-
staffe, op. cit. 41; Whitaker, Hist. of Richmondshire,
110:

°° Land P. Hen. VIII, x, 364. Richmond, 351.

“ Cott. MS. Cleop. E. iv, fol. 290d.

L. and P. Hen. VIII, xi, 481.

lands and goods of such as shall be now attainted,
that we may have them in safety, to be given, if
we be so disposed, to those who have truly served
us... . As these troubles have been promoted
by the monks and canons of these parts, at your
repair to . . . . S. Agatha’s and such places as
have made resistance... .. you shall without
pity or circumstance, now that our banner is
displayed, cause the monks to be tied up without
further delay or ceremony.’ *

In a letter from Norfolk to Cromwell, dated
28 June 1537, the duke wrote : ‘ You will also
receive by the bearers in a bag, sealed with my
seal, the Convent Seal of S. Agatha’s.“*

Among the monastic leases for 1537-8 appears
one to ‘John, Lord Scrope ; 5. Agatha’s Mon.,
Yorks., with the rectories of Manfield, Stan-
wyks, and Easby, and certain tithes and pen-
sions.’

In the Augmentation Office for 1538 there
are the following St. Agatha items among the
treasurer’s accounts: a vestment or ‘albe’ of
cloth of gold and red velvet ; a suit of copes and
vestments ofredsilk adorned with archers ; two
tunicles and a cope adorned with kings and
bishops, vestments with albes and a cape of
crimson velvet upon velvet adorned with
“strykes ’ of gold.*®

The value of the various properties belonging
to the abbey at the Dissolution was £188 16s, 24.47
The deductions in pensions, charges, alms, &c.,
amounted to £76 18s. 3d., leaving a clear
balance of £111 175.11d. The charges include
payments to chaplains celebrating at St. Saviour’s,
York, for the soul of Richard Walter ; at Wens-
ley for Richard Scrope; at Middleham for
Richard Cartmell and Richard late Earl of
Salisbury ; at Kirkby Lonsdale for William
Middleton ; at Melsonby for Master Alan de
Melsamby ;*® in St. Silvester’s chapel in Skir-
penbeck for John Romayn, archdeacon of Rich-
mond.*° There is no mention of the chaplain
whom they were bound to maintain at St. James,
Stapleton, for the soul of Nicholas de Stapleton.*™
There were seventeen canons,® besides the abbot,
and there would be the usual poor dependants
and servants. The abbot, Robert Bampton,
received a pension of 40 marks,5

Apgots oF ST. AcatTHa

Martin, c. 1155
Ralph, 1162," 1191

* Tbid. xiii (1), p. 588. bid. (2), 4.574

“ Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 235-6.

“ Egerton MS. 2827, fol. 58.

“ Ibid. fol. 260. “ Ibid. fol. 46, 52.

° Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. 1853, p. 329.

" L. and P. Hen, VIL, xiii (1), p. $75, quoting
Aug. Bk. 232, fol. 30 (date, 1536-7).

* Paildon, Mon. Notes, i, 45.

* Egerton MS. 2827, fol. 307.

* Gasquet, op. cit. ii, 1.

248

RELIGIOUS

Geoffrey, occurs 1204-9 ™

Elias, occurs 1224, deprived 1228

Robert de St. Agatha, occurs 1230; ‘R,’
1230"

Roger de St. Agatha, instituted 17 Oct. 1237 ®

Henry, occurs 1241-6 °°

William, occurs 1255

John de Novo Castro, occurs 1260," 1300

Thomas, occurs 1302

Richard de Bernyngham, instituted 1 Nov.
1302," died 1307

Will. de Ereholm,® appointed 28 Apr. 1307

Roger de Walda, occurs ante 1311; %
©Roger,’ occurs 1309 ©

William de Burelle, elected 1310, occurs
rrr”

A,, occurs 1313”

Dom. Philip de Siggeston, appointed 15 June
1315

Nigel de Ireby, appointed 25 Aug. 1320 ®

John de Percebrigg, appointed 22 July 1328

John de Thexton, occurs 1330

Thos. de Haxley (‘ Harley’), appointed 16
Oct. 1345,” occurs 13517

William Isaac, occurs 1375”

John, occurs 1392,” 1402, 1412

William Langle, occurs 1412 and 2 Feb.
142978

Robert Preston (‘Robert’) occurs
1447," 1449," 1453, 1458

Thos. Rayner, occurs 11 Sept. 1449 ™

Richard Hilton, occurs 11 Sept. 1459 ®

Robert Preston, occurs 1469-70 ®

William Yorke, occurs 4 Apr. 1470-5 *

Roger de Newhouse, occurs 28 Dec. 1475 ®

1422,76

5 Gasquet, loc. cit.

8° Clarkson, op cit. 375.

5’ Dugdale, op. cit. 922.

8 Clarkson, loc. cit. Baildon regards Robert and
Roger as the same abbot, giving ‘ Roger, 1230; Fine,
1231.”

5° Gasquet, loc. cit.

%® Egerton MS. 2827, fol. 160.

6 Clarkson, loc. cit.

% Mon. Ang/. ‘ Erlom.’ §§ Clarkson, loc. cit.

* Ibid. ® Pat. 3 Edw. II, m. 30d.

§ Clarkson, loc. cit.

Pat. 6 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 10.

68 Clarkson, loc. cit.

® Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 922.

” Assize R. 1129, m. 17.

7 Clarkson, loc. cit.

8 Thid. ™ Thid.

% Baildon, Moz. Notes, i, 45.

7 4 Jan. Clarkson, loc. cit.

® Dugdale, loc. cit.

13 Jan. 1453. Clarkson, loc. cit.

© Baildon (Mon. Notes) finding him ‘ pardoned’ in
1458. ‘There is a clash of dates here, but it is prob-
able that Robert was abbot more than once.

* Clarkson, loc. cit. ® Ibid.

® Egerton MS, 2827, fol. 138, 222.

* Dugdale, los. cit.

® Clarkson, loc. cit.

70 Clarkson, loc. cit.

* Thid.

249

HOUSES

William Ellerton, occurs 1478, died 1491 *

William Clintes, appointed 1491 ”

William Lingard, appointed 6 Mar. 1492 *

Robert Bampton, appointed 16 Oct. 1511,"
occurs 1522,” ‘last abbot’

The late 12th-century seal, 2}in. by 1} in.
is a pointed oval, showing St. Agatha standing
on a carved corbel under a canopy with trefoiled
arch and turrets, supported on slender columns,
in the right hand a book, in the left hand a palm
branch.) Legend :—

SIGILLVM EC[C]LESIE : SANCTE : AGATHE ”

A later 14th-century seal, 2g in. by 1 in., is
also a pointed oval, apparently a copy of previous
seal. Legend :—

s’ COE ABBIS MONASTERII -++ sCE + AGATE ®

Several of the letters are inverted.

An abbot’s seal of late 12th-century, about
1Zin. by 1fin., isa pointed oval. The abbot
seated, in the right hand a pastoral staff, in the
left a book. Legend :—

.. GILLVM. A... SANCTE . AGATHE *

62. EGGLESTONE ABBEY +

The Praemonstratensian abbey of St. John
the Baptist of Egglestone lay in the parish of
Rokeby on the extreme northern edge of the
ancient earldom of Richmond. Documentary
and structural evidence points to the years 1195
to 1198 as a probable date, and a member of
the Multon family was in all likelihood the
original donor. Camden says Conan IV, Duke
of Britanny and Earl of Richmond, founded
this house, but as he died in 1171 this is not
probable. The first document relating to
Egglestone is a fine, dated 1198, between Ralph
Multon and his overlord Ralph Lenham on
account of the former having alienated all the
lands which he held of him at Egglestone with-
out his sanction to the abbot and convent there.

% Tbid. 376. * Thid.

8 Dugdale, loc. cit.

8 Clarkson, op. cit. 376.

® Reg. Corpus Christi Guild (Surt. Soc. lvii), 136.

1 Clarkson (op. cit. 352) says an O/ive branch, and
states that this seal was attached to the deed of resig-
nation.

* Cat. of Seals, B.M. i, 543.

83 Tbid.

* Tbid. Of this seal and no. 1 there are engravings
in Clarkson, Richmond, 352.

‘This account is taken from Yorks. Arch. Fourn.
xviii, 129-83, except where other references are
given.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

This Ralph Multon was probably the founder.?
Ralph Lenham confirmed Multon’s gift to the
abbot, to be held of him in perpetuity for the
annual payment of 6 marks of silver for the
sixth part of one knight’s fee for all services ;
for this concession Ralph Multon gave 15
marks.2 About 1200 Gilbert Lee conveyed
to the abbey the manor of Kilvington, for the
support of nine canons in addition to those
already there (probably three). We find, in
consequence, that in 1478 the abbey was said to
have been founded in 1200 by Gilbert de Leya.*
This gift led to a serious dispute in 1248, when
Philip son of Gilbert claimed that the nine
canons should be of his presentation, and pro-
duced a charter to that effect from Abbot
Nicholas, complaining that owing to the re-
fusal of his nominees he had suffered damage to
the extent of 40 marks. The jury found that
the charter of Nicholas had not been signed
with the common seal, but nevertheless in 1251
Philip’s claims were recognized and a com-
promise arrived at, and the abbot paid £5 for
all arrears and damages incurred by the loss of
service due from the knight’s fee. Robert Stic-
hill, Bishop of Durham (1260-74), confirmed
Gilbert’s grant of Kilvington, reserving to the
church of Thornton-le-Street in fee farm the
sum of 5 marks a year. In 1272 John of Bri-
tanny, Earl of Richmond, founded a chantry
for six chaplains, to be supplied from Egglestone,
to celebrate divine service daily in the chapel of
Richmond Castle. For its maintenance he gave
property in Moulton worth £25 yearly.
Egglestone Abbey remained very poor, and
taxes in arrear were remitted from time to time,
£27 8. 4d. in 1918, £16 2%, fd, in 1338,
and £3 135.4d. in 1333. Various archbishops
tried to assist the abbey by authorizing the
appropriation of churches. In 1330 Archbishop
Melton, for the yearly payment of 2s., allowed
the abbey and convent to appropriate the church
of Startforth, given them early in the 13th
century by Helen of Hastings. In 1340 Maud,
widow of Brian Fitz Alan, granted the advowson
of Rokeby Church and lands there, and this was
also appropriated in 1342 by the leave of Arch-
bishop Zouch. In 1348, to compensate for
damage done by the royal army before the
battle of Neville’s Cross, Sir Thomas Rokeby
gave the church of Great Ouseburn, and the
same archbishop authorized its appropriation for
15s. a year. Sir Thomas Fencotes gave the
abbey the advowson of Bentham Church with

* A descendant, Thomas Multon, ob. 1314, was
patron of the abbey. His daughter and _ heiress,
Margaret, married Lord Dacre. A Lord Dacre was
patron in 1478 and at the Dissolution.

* Yorks. Arch, Journ. ut sup. quoting Feet of F.
Yorks. file 1, no. 17.

“ Gasquet, Coll. Angls-Premonstratensiana (Roy. Hist.
Soc.), no. 397.

£10 a year in 1357, but notwithstanding these
additions to their income the abbey was removed
from the Clerical Subsidy Roll in 1380.
Thomas Greenwood, canon of York, left
26s. 8d. to the ‘ poor’ monastery to pray for his
soul in 1421. In 1535 all the temporalities
and spiritualities of Egglestone amounted to
£65 125. 6d. The total expenses of the abbey,
including £3 6s. 8d., to each of the chaplains at
Startforth, Ellerton, Romaldkirk, and Richmond,
amounted to £28 18s. 3d., leaving a net income
of £36 8s. 3d.

Of the internal history of the abbey we have
a few particulars. About 1285 a report reached
the Abbot of Prémontré that the Abbot of
Egglestone had been guilty of incontinence.®
Commissioners were at once sent to inquire
into the matter and found that the whole
scandal had been concocted by three canons.
Of these the chief offender was already doing
penance at Welbeck for other misdeeds, and was
now sentenced to be banished to ‘some far-
distant church of the order’; the second canon
was sent to Torre Abbey, in Devon; and the
third was to do penance at Egglestone.6 Some
twenty years later there was again dissension in
the house. William de C. seems to have re-
signed the abbacy, possibly under pressure,
about 1309, and to have been treated by his
successor and the canons with harshness, his
good name defamed, and himself expelled from
the abbey. The Abbot of Prémontré therefore
ordered the Abbots of Dale and St. Agatha’s to
go to Egglestone and persuade the brethren to
receive their late abbot back as a member of
their house ; failing this they were to place him
in Welbeck Abbey at the expense of Eggle-
stone.’ The Abbot of St. Agatha’s apparently
thought that there was something to be said on
the other side ;® and in any case the convent of
Egglestone refused either to receive William
de C. or to pay for him. The Abbot of
Welbeck likewise refused to take him in
without pay,’ and two or three years passed
before the unfortunate man found a home in
the abbey of Torre.1°

Bishop Redman visited Egglestone in 1478,
when he found little to complain of except that
some of the canons were lax in rising for matins
and that silence was not properly observed.
There were at this time fourteen canons
besides the abbot, and one of these, Thomas
Burton, was allowed in 1481 to go to either
Oxford or Cambridge for study. It was
probably this student who was found next year
to have appropriated and pawned three books."

* Gasquet, op. cit. 389. ® Ibid. 390.
7 Ibid. 391. * Ibid. 392.
* Ibid. 393-4. " Ibid. 396.
" Tbid. 401. The offender is called Wiliam

Burton, but no such name appears in the list of
canons.

250

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Both in 1482 and 1488 the bishop found fault
with the canons for not keeping silence and for
not wearing their cloaks at proper times.”
From the list of the brethren in 1491 we find
that only the abbot and six canons were con-
tinually in residence, eight other canons serving
the churches of Great Ouseburn, Rokeby, and
Startforth, and the chapelsof Ellerton, Richmond,
Romaldkirk, Arkendale, and Askrigg.® In
1494 the question of the cloaks was still the
most important matter dealt with," but in 1497
one of the canons had taken part in a quarrel
which had resulted in the death of his
adversary, and although not directly responsible
he was banished for seven years to Halesowen,"
to appease the anger of the dead man’s friends ;
another canon had also to undergo penance for
being present at the fatal quarrel, though he had
done his best to keep the peace. The canon
who had been vicar of Startforth had turned
apostate and had made over his vicarage to
Thomas Tollerton, who was recalled as un-
suitable. The bishop forbad the brethren to go
out without leave, and especially to visit the
town of Barnard Castle, a prohibition which he
repeated in 1500,” adding that none were to
carry long knives either within or without the
abbey. Provision was to be made for the
cantarist of Richmond, that he should not in
future have to go about like a beggar. The
last recorded visitation, in 1502, revealed many
serious defects, and the canons were ordered to
cease from quarelling and not to go out of the
abbey without leave ; boys were not to sleep in the
dormitory, and the abbot was not to lease estates
for long terms without consulting the convent.
The abbey was exempted at the suppression

HOUSES

63. THE PRIORY OF ELLERTON ON
SPALDING MOOR

Early in the 13th century * William Fitz Peter
granted to God, Blessed Mary and the order

19 Gasquet, op. cit. 401, 403. 3 Ibid. 405.
M Ibid. 406. % Ibid. 408.
16 He was back at Egglestone in 1500; ibid. 410.
Y Tbid. 18 Ibid. 411.

12 The authority for this list is Yorks. Arch. Fourn.
xvili, 129-83.

20 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 51.

20a Cott. MS. Nero D. iii, fol. 52 d.

20> Egerton MS. 2823, fol. 31.

31 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 51.

2? Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 414.
resign his abbacy if he so desired.

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 975. Geoffrey, Arch-
bishop of York, is named in and is a witness to the
foundation charter ; as he was deprived in 1207 or
1208, the date of foundation must be before 1209.

Granted leave to

of 1535 and re-founded in 1537, but finally sur-
rendered in 1540. <A pension of £13 6s. 8d.
was granted to the abbot, and smaller sums, in all
amounting to £30 13s. 4d., to the sub-prior, six
priests, and one sub-deacon.

Asgots OF EGGLEsTone

Ralph de Moleton, occurs 1198 7

William

Nicholas, c. 1200

Stephen, c. 1205 ™

Robert, occurs 1216

William, occurs 1226

Hamo, occurs 1235,°” 1239

Robert, occurs 1250-4 7}

Roger, (?)

John of Easby, occurs 1296, died 1307

Thomas of Durham, elected 1307

William, elected 1309

Bernard of Langton, elected 1313

John of Theakston, elected 1330

Alexander of Easby, elected 1349

William of Startforth, elected 1351

John, occurs 1364

Peter of Easby, elected 1377

John English or Inglys, occurs 1401,” died
I41l

John of Wells, elected 16 Feb., ob. 27 Sept.
I4Il

Thomas Morton, elected 27 Sept. 1411

Thomas Rayner, elected 1445, retired 1449

Richard Hilton, elected 1449

John Woolston, elected 1455

Robert Ellerton, elected 1476

William Westerdale, elected 1495

John Wakefield, elected 1503

Thomas Darnton alas Shepherd, 1519-40

OF THE GILBERTINE ORDER

of Sempringham land in Ellerton, and other
property in the neighbourhood, for founding a
priory of canons of the order, and for the entertain-
ing (ad pascendum ibidem) thirteen poor persons.”
About the middle of the century Peter, the son
of Peter de Mauley, confirmed to the canons
all that they had of his fee, including ‘totum
situm abbathiae in Elretona,’ with the church
of the same vill.

Alan of Wilton * gave to God, Blessed Mary,
and St. Lawrence, and for the sustenance of
the canons and thirteen poor folk, 12 acres
in Howm (Holme-on-the-Wolds) and other

*Thid. 976, no. i. Gilbert, second master of
Sempringham, and John, Prior of Ellerton, acknow-
ledged themselves bound (c. 1220) to provide for the
maintenance of thirteen poor persons ‘in hospitali
ecclesiae de Elreton’ as had been arranged between
themselves and William son of the founder ; ibid.
977, no. vi. 3 Tbid. no. vii.

251

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

lands, &c., including 12 skeps of salt from his salt
works in West Coatham. In this charter first
occurs the additional invocation of St. Lawrence.
Alan de Wilton‘ also gave 6 bovates of land
in Habton for a light at the altar of St. Law-
rence in the canons’ church, and for the main-
tenance of a chaplain to celebrate at that altar.

In April 1387 ° it was agreed that German
Hay, then patron, and his successors, lords of
the manor of Aughton, should nominate eight
of the poor supported by the convent, in addition
to one who had previously been in the patron’s
nomination, and the prior and convent were to
celebrate the obits of German Hay and Alice
his wife, the prior, if possible, officiating in
person. The indenture does not reveal any
grant, other than a general confirmation of his
ancestors’ gifts, as a reason for these concessions.

A good many other possessions were granted
to the prior and convent, and, as usual, are set
out in alphabetical order by Burton.®

Archbishop Romanus, in 1286,’ wrote to the
master of the order of Sempringham to receive
a canon of Ellerton who had left his house. In
1417 ® there isa record of the appointment of
John Zuesflet, canon of Ellerton, as temporal
custos of their church of Aughton. Otherwise
the history of Ellerton is almost a blank till the
time of the Dissolution, In 1380-1 there were
four canons besides the prior. In 1526° the
clear annual revenue was returned at £63.
Tanner says that there were nine religious in
the house,” but there was the same number at
the surrender as in 1380-1," which looks as if
that were the normal strength of the establish-
ment. Possibly he has included the poor who
were maintained in the house, and whose
number may have dwindled considerably.

The house was surrendered on 11 December
1538 ” by John Golding, prior, and four canons.
Golding had only become prior that year,” and
there is some mystery as to the fate of his pre-
decessor, Prior James Lowrance. The convent
of Watton had elected him their prior in 1536.
They had done this under compulsion, Robert

* Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. 918, no. ix.

* Ibid. 977, no. iv.

* Mon. Ebor. 259-62. William son of Ingram
Aguillun granted to God, Blessed Mary, and the
canons and poor persons of Ellerton, Roger Colwin
of Cathwell with all that belonged to him. Among
the witnesses to the charter is William Fitz Peter,
the founder ; Add. Chart. 20553.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 59.

® Ibid. Bowett, fol. 186.

* State Papers (P.R.O.), 1526 (return by Brian
Higdon).

® Dugdale, Mon Angl. vi, 975.

" Dep. Keeper's Rep. viii, App. 2.

* Ibid.

* Cf. Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 191,
and no. 187; Graham, St. Gilbert of Sempringham
and the Gilbertines, 182 &c. citing authorities,

Holgate the actual prior being still alive. Low-
rance, it is said, ‘ would never take it upon him,
nor did they (Watton) receive him for such
indeed, but wanted him (Lowrance) to bear
the name (of Prior of Watton) only, for fear of
the commons.’ He continued Prior of Ellerton
till early in 1538, and then disappears from
view; possibly he died a natural death as his
name is absent from the list of pensions. John
Golding first occurs as prior about a month
before the Dissolution.4 He alone of the
members of the house of Ellerton was alive in
6 Edward VI,!* when he was fifty-three years
of age; his pension was £13 65. 8d.

Priors oF ELLERTON ON SPALDING Moor

John, occurs 1219,'® 1230"

Ivo, occurs 1240 }8

Geoffrey, occurs 1246, 1248”

Henry, occurs 1252,” 1269

Adam de Scarborough, occurs 1282 ¥

Robert, occurs 1294 74

Ralph, occurs 1305

Alan,” occurs 1335,77 1336 8

William, occurs 1348," 1371 ®

John Barnby, occurs 1436," 1437 *

Thomas Finche, occurs 1437,°° 1438 ™

Giles, occurs? 1439 *

Henry Bell, occurs 1497,*° 1506-7 *”

Robert, occurs 15 31,8 1533 *

James Lowrance, occurs 1534 to 1538 ®

John Golding, occurs 7 Nov. 1538,") surren-
dered the house 11 Dec. 1538 #

™ Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 187.

* Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 23.

"Ibid. file 22, no. 3, 21 (Trin. 12-14
Hen. III).

* Ibid. file 32, no. 99 (Trin. 24 Hen. III).

'° Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 53.

” Feet of F. file 41, no. 19 (Mich. 32 Hen. III).

" Tbid. Hil. 36 Hen. III.

” Baildon, loc. cit.

* Ibid.

™ Feet of F. file 66, no. 4 (East. 22 Edw. 1).

* Baildon, loc. cit.

7 Ibid.

* Ibid.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 53.

* [bid.

* Baildon’s MS. Notes.

3 Tbid.

** Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 53.

* Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 66, no. 41.

* Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), iv, 123.

*7 Ibid. g2.

* Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 187.

* Thid. no. 84.

“Thid. no. 183, 190, 191 ; Valor Eccl. v, 128.

“ Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 187.

® Dep. Keeper’s Rep. viii, App. 20.

* Ibid.

292

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

64. THE PRIORY OF MALTON

The priory of St. Mary at Malton was
founded in 1150 by Eustace Fitz John, and en-
dowed by him with the churches of Malton,
Wintringham, and Brompton, and the vill of
Linton ; his son William confirmed the gift.
‘The canons had charge of three hospital houses
for feeding the poor, one in Wheelgate, another
at Broughton, and a third on an island in the
Derwent, on the Norton side of the river, the
gift of William Flamville. William de Vesci
gave the canons the church of Ancaster and the
chapel of Sowerby. Burga, his widow, added
the church of Norton, and Hugh, Bishop of
Lincoln, confirmed the gift of Walter Nevill of
the church of Walden in Hertfordshire.1 Walter
Fitz Alan endowed the Gilbertines with land at
Newton-upon-Ayr in Scotland, but the Master
of Sempringham declined to build there, and
leased the land to the Abbot and convent of
Paisley for 40 mark; a year, to be paid to the
Priors of Malton and St. Andrew’s at York.?
The possessions of Malton were confirmed in
1178 by a bull of Alexander III, declaring it
to be unlawful to disturb the church of the
Blessed Mary at Malton, to take away its
possessions, and to harass the canons by any
vexations ‘now or in the future,’ and King
John also issued a confirmatory charter. A bull
of Innocent III settled a dispute about the tithes
of Sowerby belonging to the church of Win-
tringham, and Sir William Lascelles, kt., gave
2 bovates of land and swore to keep the terms
of the agreement *; another bull of Innocent IV
to the Prior of Malton asserted that apostolic
indulgence was not limited to the house of
Sempringham as some affirmed.*

Archbishop Walter Gray presented to the
vicarage of Brompton in 1237 ‘so that at other
times no prejudice shall arise against the Prior
and convent of Malton, who hold the patron-
age’; in 1245 an inquisition on the matter was
held, and it was found that the right of presen-
tation belonged to the Prior and convent of
Malton. The living of Langton was also in
the gift of the prior.© The accounts of Malton
are extant from the years 1244 to 1257. At
this time the canons held land in forty-nine
parishes, and had 250 tenants paying rent
amounting to £60; they had a mill at Swinton
let for 16s. and another at Rillington let for 155.
In 1253, for instance, the receipts of Mal-
ton were {691 16s. 5d, the expenditure
£687 os. 10d. The papal subsidy and tallage

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 970-2; cf. Cott. MS.
Claud. D. xi, Chartulary of Malton.

7 Graham, St Gilbert of Sempringham and the
Gilbertines, 47.

3 Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 973.

“ Graham, op. cit. 99. * Ibid. 10g.

§ Ibid. 126, 127; Chartul. fol. 266-76.

in that year was {140 135. 4d. About two-
thirds of the revenue was derived from wool,
and in a good year this might amount to £400 ;
most of the land was therefore devoted to
pasture, and considerable sums were spent in
buying corn—in 1254 as muchas £138 135. 4d.
During the years for which the accounts
remain, £478 145. 5d. was spent in purchasing
lands, and £197 175. in hiring meadows. Yet
in spite of this apparent prosperity Malton
Priory had many debts; these amounted in
1255 to £251 13s. 4d, and were possibly the
result of direct borrowing from the Jews. The
Prior of Malton frequently paid the debts of
benefactors to the priory; thus, in 1244,
William of Richborough gave to the house
7 bovates in Welham, and 363 marks of silver
were paid to the Jews on his behalf, besides
3 marks, the dower of his mother, Albreda.
William Redburn’s debts to the Jews were also
settled, and Ralph Bolbeck’s gift of 60 quar-
terns of salt and common lands and meadows
were rewarded by a settlement of his debts and
provision for two men and two horses whenever
he came to Malton.’

Besides the transactions with the Jews, the
assizes of the forest added considerably to the
expenditure of the convent; £16 was paid for
pleas in 1249, and between the years 1243 and
1257 £94 145. 3d. were given as bribes to the
sheriffs and bailiffs of the forest of Pickering.®
Malton also suffered, as did Watton, from Agnes
de Vescy and her ministers who, in 1283, assaulted
two of the brethren, drove away cattle, and
denied them food, and yet would not let them
be replevied. The townsmen of Malton also
made distraints on the prior contrary to his
charters, and purveyors seized corn from the
convent for the Scotch wars. In 1405 the
prior and convent joined Scrope and Mowbray
in the rebellion against Henry IV.? Although
in 1535 the revenue was under £200, Robert
Holgate’s influence prevented the dissolution of
the priory, which survived for four years longer.
The prior was accused of taking part in the
Pilgrimage of Grace and arrested, but his fate
is unknown ; in 1538 the commissioners in the
North wrote to Cromwell that Malton would
surrender if there were any commissioners to
receive it, and in December 1539 the prior
and nine canons gave up the last Gilbertine
house. The prior received a pension of £40,
and eight canons £4 each.”

Priors oF Matron

Gilbert, occurs 1169 1
Roger, occurs 1178 ?
Ralph, occurs 1195 ®

’ Graham, op. cit. 123, 124. ®* Ibid. 79-81.
* Ibid. 153. Ibid, 197.

" Ckartul. fol. 7." Ibid. 3 Tbid. fol. 218d.

253

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Cyprian, occurs 1201, 12034

Adam, occurs 1214,!° 1219

William, occurs 1235,)” resigned 125638

John, occurs 1256,'° 1270 %

William de Anecaster, c, 12787!

Robert, occurs 1278,”? 1280-4

Ranulph de Richmundia,"* c, 1285

Geoffrey, occurs 1288 *

William Baudewyn, alias de Scarburg,”* occurs
1290,” 12968

William, occurs 1305

Thomas de Pokelyngton, occurs 1322

William, occurs 13363

John de Wintrington, 1337,” 13408

John, occurs 1343 *4

John de Wintringham, occurs 1350

Robert de Skakelthorp, occurs 1360,3* 1365 *

William de Bentham, occurs 1368, 1379 ®

William de Beverlaco, occurs 1380-1 *

Geoffrey de Wymeswold, occurs 1405 *° (as
Geoffrey, occurs 1425 *)

John Wardale, occurs 1433,” 1435”

Richard Heworth, occurs 1459," 1487 *

Roger, occurs 1517 *

Richard Felton, occurs 1524-5 *”

William Todde, occurs 1526 to 1537 *

John Crashawe *

™ Chartul. fol. 206, 214.

* Yorks, Fines, John (Surt. Soc.), 174.

% Linc. Rec. Final Concords, 133.

” Feet of F. file 30, no. 40.

Chartul, fol. 2.

® Add. Chart. 35580.

" Assize R. 1101, m. 84.

® Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 119.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 1254, &c. ;
he had resigned and become a Cistercian monk of
Fountains that he might lead a sterner life.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 119. He was the im-
mediate successor of Ranulph ; Chartul. fol. 138.

* Chartul. fol. 114. 7 Ibid. fol. 138.

* Thid. fol. 49. ® Assize R. 1107,m.27d.

* Chartul. fol. 140. *! [bid. fol. 126.

* Tbid. fol. 133. 3 Ibid. fol. 140.

* Baildon, loc. cit.

* Test. Ebor. i, 63. As John de Wintrington had
ceased to be frior before 1342 (Chartul. fol. 140), it
was probably a coincidence that two priors with such
very similar names followed one another. John,
whose name occurs in 1343, was probably John de
Wintringham, who seems to have been Prior of
Sempringham in 1360 (ibid. fol. 290).

Chartul. fol. 2go.

* Ibid. fol. 150. *§ Baildon, loc. cit.

® Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 63, no. to.

“ Pat. 6 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. ro.

“ Baildon, loc. cit.

“ Baildon’s MS. Notes. * Baildon, loc. cit.

“ Toid. © Test. Ebor. iv, 21.

“ Conventual Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 452.

” Thid.

“ As ‘William’ only; ibid. no. 450, 451, 456,
458,459, 460, 461; L. and P. Hen. VIII, xii,
1023 (William Todde, 1537).

“ Graham, op. cit. 195.

9 Thid. fol. 65.

” Chartul. fol. 243.

65. THE PRIORY OF WATTON

The double house of St. Mary of Watton,
near Beverley, was founded in 1150 by Eustace
Fitz John as a penance for having fought on the
Scottish side in the battle of the Standard. He
built a house for the nuns and canons of Sem-
pringham, and endowed it with the township of
Watton ; his gift was confirmed by his wife
Agnes, daughter of William, Constable of
Chester, whose marriage portion it was, and
also by William Fossard, the superior lord, who
remitted the service of two knights, for the
support of thirteen canons who should always
serve the nuns and provide for them in divine
and earthly things.!| A few years later Fossard
gave the nuns 3 carucates in ‘ Howald’ for the
remission of his sins, instead of going on a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Alexander of Santon
gave 1,600 acres in Santon, and Richard of
Santon confirmed the gift ; Robert Constable of
Flamborough granted lands in Hilderthorpe to
the nuns and brothers, clerk and lay, and the
right of collecting masts for their own ship.
King John confirmed the grant of Henry II of
lands in Langdale and ‘ Butresdalebeck.’ ?

Walter Gray granted the nuns an annual
payment of 5 marks out of the church of Santon
for a pittance, and made them patrons of the
whole church of which they had heretofore held
only a moiety.?

Royal protection was accorded to Watton in
more than one instance; in 1272 Henry III
had to interfere on behalf of the prior against
Agnes de Vescy, who came to the priory with
a great number of women and dogs, and other
things, and disturbed the devotions of the sisters
and nuns ; and in 1314 Edward II granted the
prior a year’s immunity from the purveyors for
his Scottish wars, because ‘certain persons,
feigning that they are purveyors of victuals . .
frequently come to the priory and granges and
there take, in the king’s name, animals, carts,
corn, and other victuals.” In 1305, Margery,
the daughter of Robert Bruce, dwelt at Watton
by the king’s order, and the Sheriff of York
paid her 3d. a day, and 1 mark a year for her
robe.

Archbishop Melton blessed fifty-three nuns
at Watton in 1326,‘ and lent the priory money
because it was in debt. In spite of these gifts
the poverty of Watton was notorious, the
revenues were not sufficient for the expenses of
the inmates, and in 1444 Henry VI exempted
the priory from all aids, subsidies, tallazes,
tenths, and fifteenths.® During the next century

* Add. Chart. 20561 (c. 1154-5).

” Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 956.

* Graham, op. cit. 109.

‘Ibid. 103. In 1378-9 there were three
prioresses and sixty-one nuns; Subs. R. (P.R.O.),
bdle. 63, no. 11. * Ibid. 89.

254

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

the financial position must have improved, for
in 1535 the gross revenue was £453 75. 84.,
and the clear annual value £360 16s. 1o$d.°

The Pilgrimage of Grace created much dis-
sension at Watton ; the Gilbertines were accused
of taking part, and the prior, Robert Holgate,
fled to Cromwell ‘being one of his promotion,’
and left sixty or eighty ® brethren and sisters
without 40s. to succour them. During his
absence Sir Francis Bigod incited the canons to
anew election, and the Prior of Ellerton was
appointed ; various insurrectionary captains took
carts, horses, and men, but obviously the canons
were unwilling. One man gave evidence that
the canons were setters forth of sedition, there
was ‘never a good one of all the canons of
that house,” but there is no proof of their treason,
and certainly Watton was not forfeited to
Henry VIII.’
with seven canons, two prioresses, and twelve
nuns; each canon received a pension of (4,
the prioresses {5 each, and the others smaller
sums. Holgate himself was given a life grant
of Watton Priory except the nuns’ church, the
manor of Watton, and seven other manors
belonging to the priory. In the Ministers’
Accounts the possessions of Watton Priory
amounted to £730 6s. 10d.

Priors oF WaTTON

Robert, occurs 1194 to 1202°

Peter, occurs 1206,!° 1208 44

Richard, occurs 1219,” also 1223-5 ¥

William, occurs 1226,)* 1238 ¥

Roger, occurs 1240%°

Patrick, occurs 1251-21 to 1260,” elected
Master of Sempringham 1261-2 *

Roger (? de Dalton), occurs 1267-728

Reginald, before 1278

Robert de Cave”

Patrick de Middleton, occurs 1277 7-80 *

® Graham, op. cit. 167 n.

These numbers must include all the servants and
labourers employed by the convent.

7 Graham, op. cit. 182. * Ibid. 199.

9 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 215 ; Yorks. Fines, Fohn
(Surt. Soc.), 4, 12, 67, 68.

0 Yorks. Fines, Fohn, 98, 144.

Tbid. 2 Baildon, loc. cit.

™ Feet of F. file 17, no. 21.

38 Cott. MS. Nero D. iii, fol. 53 d.

4 Baildon, loc. cit. 8 Thid.

16 Feet of F. file 45, no. 144 (Hil. 36 Hen. III).

7 Thid. file 48, no. 44 (Mich. 44 Hen. III).

18 Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 947.

18 Baildon, loc. cit. 9 Ibid.

” Assize R. 1055, m. 75%. (Patrick de Middle-
ton’s immediate predecessor is there said to have
been Robert de Cave.)

Close, 5 Edw. I, m. 7.

*3 Feet of F. file 59, no. 69 (Hil. 8 Edw. I).

In 1539 Holgate surrendered

John de Hoton, occurs 1300 *4

Richard de Watton, occurs 1327," 1350

John de Ecton, occurs 1355 7° (as ‘ John’ only),
1368, 137277

William, occurs 1378 *

John de Whitby, occurs 1382 ”

Robert Stegyll, occurs 1398 *

John, occurs 1423 *!

William, occurs 1455 ®

William Cayton, occurs 1473

James Boulton,*4 occurs 1482, 1497 *8

Thomas, occurs 1530 77

Robert Holgate, before 1536 *8 (commendator)

James Lowrance (Prior of Ellerton), elected
1536-9 informally,” and did not take office

Robert Holgate, surrendered 1539

66. THE PRIORY OF ST. ANDREW,
YORK

About 12001 Hugh Murdac, Archdeacon of
Cleveland, granted to God, and twelve canons of
the Order of Sempringham serving God at St.
Andrew’s in Fishergate, York,” that church, with
the land adjacent, and an annual rent of 21
marks arising from certain stone-built houses near
St. Peter’s, and a stone camera adjoining, and
other lands, &c., elsewhere.

In 1202% the Master of Sempringham, the
canons of St. Andrew, and the founder, demised
in perpetuity to the dean and chapter and the
church of St. Peter the land which they held of
Hugh de Virly, before the western door of the
major ecclesia, in order to extend the cemetery of
the said church, and to avoid the risk of fire and
damage thereby to the major ecclesia and the
buildings of the lord archbishop. In return, the
dean and chapter gave the canons of St. Andrew
24 marks rents in the vill of Cave.*

™ Baildon, loc.
Edw. II, 264.

4 Plac. de Banco,
(P.R.O. Lists), 775.

*® Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), i, 63.

7 Baildon, loc. cit. % Thid.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 230.

31 Baildon, loc. cit. 3? Thid.

3 Reg. Corpus Christi Guild, York, 86.

So described in a licence to preach of 1482 ;
York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, 22.

8° York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, 22.

% Anct. D. (P.R.O.), iii, D. 773 : as James only.

” Test. Ebor. v, 299. 8 Graham, op. cit. 174.

% Thid. 182, 183.

' Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 966. Hugh Murdac, the
founder, must not be confused with Henry Murdac,
the archbishop, who was possibly his kinsman.

7 Thid. no. i. 5 Tbid. no. ii.

‘ These are probably the free rents, &c., in South
Cave, &c., mentioned in the Mins. Accts. 32,
Hen. VIII ; ibid, no. iii.

cit.; Cal. of Ing. p.m. 10-20

East. 1 Edw. III, m. 70,

® Ibid.

255

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The buildings immediately adjoined those of
the small Benedictine nunnery of St. Clement.
Although the original intention of the founder
was that there were to be twelve canons in the
house, the probability is that their number was
much less. In 1380-1 there were three canons
besides the prior, and at the dissolution only two
canons in addition to the prior.

On 20 August 1280° the Prior and con-
vent of St. Andrew addressed a formal letter
to Archbishop Wickwane, reporting that Richard
de Kyrkeby and Alan de Thorpe, their brothers
and fellow canons, relinquishing the habit of
their religion, had by night furtively departed, to
the contempt of religion and the peril of souls.
The prior and convent had unanimously
denounced them, in chapter and convent, as
excommunicate, and they asked the archbishop
to do so throughout the diocese, and after forty
days to invoke the secular arm. The letter is
followed in the register by the archbishop’s
denunciation of Richard de Kyrkeby and Alan de
Thorpe as excommunicate, with a notification
addressed to the Bishops of Durham, Carlisle, and
Whithern (Candida Casa),° and all archdeacons
and officials in the diocese and province of York.
On 30 January 1486-77 Archbishop Rotherham
issued a monition to [John] Beysby, John Shaw,
Sheriffs of York, and others, citing them to

HOUSES.

67. THE PRECEPTORY OF YORKSHIRE
The Order of Knights of the Temple of

Jerusalem was founded in 1119, but it was not
until the middle of the 12th century that they
began to acquire possessions in Yorkshire, where
they eventually established at least ten precep-

® York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 8.

§ The diocese of Whithern, or Galloway, was at this
period included in the province of York.

7 York Achiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 73.
Christian name of Beysby is left blank.

8 Valor Eccl. v, 126.

° Dep. Keeper's Rep. viii, App. 2.

10 L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (1), 185.

Graham, S¢. Gilbert of Sempringham and the
Gilbertines, 194.

2 Yorks, Fines, Fohn (Surt. Soc.), 147.

8 Ibid. 162.

™ Dep. Keeper's Rep. xxxvill, App. 182.

5 Feet of F. file 13, no. 17 (Hil. 3 Hen. III).

83 Cott. MS. Nero D. in, fol. 51.

16 Ibid. file 33, no. 132 3 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 237.

1 Whitby Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 468.

18 Baildon, loc. cit.

Sa Assize R. 1101, m. 84 ; 1098, m. 62d.

18> Ibid. Cal. Close, 1333-7, p. 465.

a Cal. of Papal Letters, ill, 532.

” Reg. Corpus Christi Guild, York, 109.

"1. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (1), 185.

The

" Ibid. 164.

appear before him for having gone to the priory °
of St. Andrew and seized certain persons by
violence who had sought sanctuary within the
precincts of the monastery, the churches of the
order of Sempringham having the right of
sanctuary granted them by Pope Clement III.

According to the Valor Ecclesiasticus ® the total
revenue was at that time £57 55. 9d., and the
clear income £47 145. 34d. At the Dissolution
there were a prior and three canons, all of them
priests.° The prior, John Lepington,!® was
awarded a pension of £10 (altered from £8), the
three canons £4 each. They surrendered on
28 November 1538."

Priors oF St. ANDREW’S

Bartholomew, occurs 1208 !?

Robert, occurs 1210

John, occurs 1214 4

Baldwin, occurs 1219

William, occurs 1225,' 1230-40," 1254 7
Robert, occurs 1262 8

Adam de Aghton, c. 1278 1®
Robert de Scalleby, c. 1288 1%
Ralph, occurs 1335!

Robert, occurs 1354

John Hawkesworth, occurs 148
William Beseet (Bisset), occurs 1506”
John Lepington (surrendered 1538) ”

1 20

OF KNIGHTS TEMPLARS

tories. Their prosperity was brought to an abrupt
close early inthe 14th century ; in 1308 Sir John
Crepping, Sheriff of Yorkshire, received the
king’s writ to arrest the Templars within the
county and sequester all their property.!
Twenty-five Templars were placed in custody
in York Castle and examined on the charge or
heresy, idolatry, and other crimes, brought against
the order by Pope Clement V and Philip 1V_ of
France. After a long-drawn-out trial, in which
the evidence adduced against the knights was too
flimsy to secure the desired conviction, a com-
promise was arrived at by which the brethren,
without admitting their guilt, acknowledged that
their order was strongly suspected of heresy and
other charges from which they could not clear
themselves. “They then received absolution at
the hands of the Bishop of Whithern on 29 July
1311, were released from prison, and were
distributed amongst the various monasteries.”
Next year the suppression of the order was
decreed by the pope, and a large portion or
their estates was made over to the order of the
Knights Hospitallers.

' Kenrick, Papers on Arch. and Hist. 44. A list of
documents of the reign of Edward II relating to the
Yorks. Templars, and now in the Public Record
Office, is given on p. 63.

* Rec. of the Northern Convocation (Surt. Soc.), 19-60.

256

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

The Yorkshire estates of the Templars con-
sisted of the preceptories of Copmanthorpe (with
the Castle Mills of York), Faxfleet, Foulbridge,
Penhill, Ribston, Temple Cowton, Temple Hirst,
Temple Newsam, Westerdale, and Whitley, and
the manors of Alverthorpe and Etton, which,
although possessing chapels, do not seem to have
had preceptors. All these estates, with the
exception of Faxfleet, Temple Hirst, and Temple
Newsam, passed to the Hospitallers.

So important were the Templars’ holdings in
the county that a ‘chief preceptor’ or ‘ master’
was appointed for Yorkshire from early times.

CHIEF PRECEPTORS OF YORKSHIRE

Walter Brito, c. 1220

Roger de Scamelesbi, c. 1240 *

William de Merden, c. 1270 4

Robert de Haleghton, or Halton, occurs 1290,
1293 °

Thomas de Thoulouse, c. 1301 §

William de Grafton, occurs 1304,’ arrested
1308 §

68. THE PRECEPTORY OF COPMAN-
THORPE, WITH THE CASTLE
MILLS, YORK

William Malbys gave the manor of Copman-
thorpe and other property to the Templars on
condition that they should support a chaplain to
celebrate for the souls of himself and his relations
in the chapel of the manor.’ The date of this
grant is uncertain, but it must have been prior to
1258, as the manor is mentioned as belonging to
the brethren ina confirmatory charter by William
de Ros, who died in that year.!°

A return made in 1292 states that the
preceptor of Copmanthorpe was keeper of the
mills below the castle at York." These mills
were given to the Templars by Roger de
Mowbray prior to 1185, at which date they
were let for 154 marks.” With the mills at this
time the brethren held in York three tofts which
they had bought, and another which had been

® Rievaulx Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), 26, 240; occurs,
as Walter only, in 1216; Rot. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com),
i, 165.

52 Percy Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), 46. He was precep-
tor of Willoughton (Lincs.) in 1223, and of Lindsey
in 1234; Cott. MS. Nero, D. iii, fol. 15.

* Yorks. Arch. Rec. xxxix, 162.

° He was falsely accused of being concerned in
the death of William de Eyvill of South Cave ; Pat.
18 Edw. I, m. 37; 21 Edw. I, m. 21.

® Wilkins, Concilia, ii, 341.

” Yorks. Arch. Fourn. x, 286.

® Exch. Anct. Extents, 17.

" Assize R. 1268, m. 27.

Y Exch. K.R. Misc. Bks. xvi, fol. 64.

® Ibid. 432.

given them by ‘Thomas ‘ Ultra Usam,’ a
prominent citizen of York. Henry HI in 1232
gave them another strip of land adjoining the
mills.’3 In 1308 the property in York con-
sisted of the mills, a messuage with a garden, and
three plots of land.!* There was a chapel at
the mills to which William de Appelby paid 48s.
yearly for the support of a chantry.” This
chapel was well furnished, possessing a gilt chalice
worth 100s., nine service-books of different
kinds, and various vestments and ornaments.'®
The value of the mills was returned at £10 115.,
while the estate of Copmanthorpe, of which the
chapel was exceptionally well provided, was
valued at £80 16s. 2d.

No preceptor of Copmanthorpe was amongst
the knights arrested in 1308, and the only holder
of the post whose name is known is Robert de
Reygate, who, with John, chaplain of the
Castle Mills, was accused in 1292 of having set
nets below the mills to catch the king’s fish.”
He was still preceptor the following year.!®

69. THE PRECEPTORY OF FAXFLEET

Although very little is known of this precep-
tory, it was clearly one of the most important in
the county. The value in 1308 is returned as
£290 4s. 10d., a greater sum than was set down
for any other Yorkshire preceptory ; the chapel
was remarkably well provided, the value of its
contents reaching the exceptional sum of (12,
and there was ‘a certain treasury with many
written deeds and bulls relating to estates in
Yorkshire,’ which was duly locked up and sealed
with the seals of the sheriff and the preceptor of
Yorkshire.”

Several of the Templars arrested in 1308 said
that they had been received into the order of
Faxfleet. Hugh of Tadcaster, for instance,
related how he had formerly been ‘ claviger’ at
Faxfleet, and when he desired to be admitted the
Grand Master, William de la More, received
him into the order in the chapel.”

Geoffrey Jolif was preceptor in 1290 ;72
Brother Stephen held that office in 1301, when
Thomas le Chamberleyn was admitted to the
order ;” and William del Fen was preceptor in
1308, when he was arrested, with Richard de
Ryston, chaplain, Thomas Tyeth, claviger, and
Roger de Hugunde or Hogyndon, a brother in .
residence at Faxfleet.”

8 Cal. Chart. R. 1226-57, p. 148.

“ Exch. Anct. Extents, 16, no. 23.

8 Thid. 1098, m. 60.

® Exch. Anct. Extents, 18, no. 13.

*® Wilkins, Concifia, ii, 335.
* Pat. 18 Edw. I, m. 37.

® Yorks. Arch. Fourn. x, 432.

* Wilkins, loc. cit.

3 257 33

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

7o. THE PRECEPTORY OF FOUL-
BRIDGE

Little is known of this preceptory. At the
time of the suppression of the order the estates
of Foukebridge, Allerston, and Wydale were
returned as worth (?) £254 3s. 24. The furni-
ture of the chapel included four crosses, ‘ two
with images and two without.’ Another
return mentions that the Templars supported a
chaplain and gave alms three days in the week
to any poor persons who came.” The only
known preceptor is Richard de Hales, who was
arrested in 1308,%

71. PRECEPTORY OF PENHILL

Roger Mowbray, by a charter assigned to
about 1142, granted timber from his forests of
Nidderdale, Malzeard, and Masham for the build-
ing of three of the Templars’ houses wherever they
might wish at Penhill, Cowton, and ‘ Reinhou.’”
While this points to the early establishment of a
preceptory here, it is noticeable that in the survey
of 1185 the estates at ‘Pennel,’ consisting of
2 carucates given by William son of Hugh,
were accounted for under “Temple Newsam.*
That the knights had some sort of an_ establish-
ment here shortly after this date seems clear, as
a fine of 1202 relating to their property in
Witton mentions the house and the cemetery of
the brethren.”

There was a chapel at Penhill, of which the
ruins, containing an altar and some stone coffins,
were excavated some years since.*° This no
doubt adjoined the cemetery just mentioned, as
a number of coffins were found outside the east
wall. Early grants are recorded for the support
of the lights of St. Katherine and the Holy Cross
at Penhill,*! and the chapel is mentioned at the
time of the suppression of the order as contain-
ing a chalice worth 20s. and a few books and
vestments.3?

The only known preceptor of Penhill is
Thomas de Belleby, who was arrested in 1308.8

72. THE PRECEPTORY OF RIBSTON
AND WETHERBY

About 1217 Robert de Ros gave to the
Templars his manor of Ribston, with the
advowson of the church, the vill and mills of

™ Exch. Anct. Extents, 18, no. 14.

* Ibid. 16, no. 25.

® Exch. K.R. Misc. Bks. xvi, fol. 60.

* Yorks. Fines, Fohn (Surt. Soc.), 26, Ixii.

° W.S.B. Jones Barker, Hist. and Topog. Acct. of
Wensleydale (1853).

Yorks. Arch. Fourn. viii, 259.

*” Exch. Anct. Extents, 18, no. 4. § Tbid. no. 1.

Walshford, and the vill of Hunsingore.* This
property had come to Robert de Ros from his
mother, Rose Trussebut; and her sisters, Hilary
and Agatha, at some date prior to 1240, made
grants of various woods in the neighbourhood
to the preceptory. Robert son of William
Denby gave the vill of Wetherby to the Templars,
and other smaller grants followed.

Besides the church of Hunsingore the Tem-
plars had chapels at Wetherby, Ribston, and
apparently at Walshford. The chapel of St.
Andrew at Ribston stood in the churchyard of
the parish church, and in 1231 was the subject
of an arrangement between the brethren and the
rector. About this time a sum of £2 16s. was
assigned for the support of a chaplain at Ribston
for the good of the soul of Robert de Ros.

The estates at Ribston and Wetherby seem to
have formed a single preceptory, but were valued
separately at the time of their seizure in 1308.
Wetherby * was then returned as worth
£120 75. 8d., and Ribston, including North
Deighton and Lound, at £267 135.°° The
chapels in each case were simply furnished, but
Ribston was remarkable as possessing two silver
cups, three masers, and ten silver spoons—more
secular plate than all the other Yorkshire pre-
ceptories put together. At the time of the trial
of the Templars, Gasper de Nafferton, who had
been chaplain at Ribston, related certain cases in
which the brethren had observed a great and, as
he now perceived, suspicious secrecy in matters
touching admission to the order.*7 And Robert
de Oteringham, a Friar Minor, who gave evi-
dence against the Templars,® said that at Ribston
a chaplain of the order, after returning thanks,
denounced his brethren, saying ‘The Devil
shall burn you!’ He also saw one of the
brethren, apparently during the confusion which
ensued on this exclamation, turn his back upon
the altar. Further, some twenty years before,
he was at Wetherby, and the chief preceptor, who
was also there, did not come to supper because
he was preparing certain relics which he had
brought from the Holy Land; thinking he heard
a noise in the chapel during the night, Robert
looked through the keyhole, and saw a great
light, but when he asked one of the brethren
about it next day he was bidden to hold his
tongue as he valued his life. At Ribston, also,
he once saw a crucifix lying as if thrown down
on the altar, and when he was going to stand it
up he was told to leave it alone. As this was
some of the most direct and damaging evidence
given during the trial the weakness of the case
against the Templars is obvious.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 838. The charters
relating to this preceptory have been fully treated in
Yorks. Arch. Fourn. vii, viii and ix.

* Exch. Anct. Extents, 18, no. 11.

* Ibid. no. 15.

* Wilkins, op. cit. 362. * Ibid. 359.

258

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Of the preceptors only two names appear
to have survived. William de Garewyz was
preceptor of Wetherby in, or a little before,
1293,°° and Richard de Keswik, or Chesewyk,
who was admitted to the order at Faxfleet in
1290,*" became preceptor of Ribston about 12984!
and still held that post in 1308 when he was
arrested, with Richard de Brakearp, claviger,

and Henry de Craven, a brother in residence at
Ribston.”

73. THE PRECEPTORY OF TEMPLE
COWTON

Cowton was one of the three estates of the
Templars to which Roger Mowbray, about
1142, granted timber for building purposes.‘
But in 1185 the 6 carucates in ‘Cutun,’ said
to have been given by Robert Cambord (?), were
returned under Newsam. The manor of
Kirkby was given to the Templars by Baldwin
Wake,* and the estates belonging to the pre-
ceptory were worth about {100 at the time of
their seizure in 1308.46 ‘The preceptory at that
time consisted of hall, chamber, chapel, kitchen,
brewhouse, and smithy. In the chapel were two
hanging bells worth 26s. and two hand-bells
worth 12d., and in the chamber was a sealed
chest containing ‘all the charters of the Temple
of Scotland together with various charters of
certain estates in England.’ ”

At the time of its suppression the community
at Cowton consisted of John de Walpole, the pre-
ceptor, Henry de Rerby, claviger, and Roger de
Thresk.*®

74. THE PRECEPTORY OF TEMPLE
HIRST

This preceptory originated in the grant of the
manor of Hirst in Birkin made in 1152 by
Ralph Hastings to the order, of which his
brother Richard was grand master.4? Henry
Lacy, Ralph’s superior lord, confirmed this grant
and another by Henry Vernoil of land at Potter-
law. Other grants followed, including the
church of Kellington, given by Henry Lacy.™
They had also a chapel at Norton, and a chapel

589 Assize R. 1101, m. 62.

“ Wilkins, op. cit. 372.

* Yorks. Arch. Fourn. x, 432.

8 Ibid. viii, 259.

Exch. K.R. Misc. Bks. xvi, fol. 60.

“ Dugdale, loc. cit. ; Yorks. Fines, John (Surt. Soc.),
160-1.

“ Exch. Anct. Extents, 18, no. 16.

® Yorks. Arch. fourn. x, 432.

*® Dugdale, loc. cit.

9 Yorks. Arch. Fourn. x, 280.

" Thid. 377.

*" Thid.

must have been built at Hirst before 1185, as
40 acres in Fenwick were given prior to that
date by Jordan Foliot for the support of a chaplain
at Hirst.°? Adam of Newmarket stipulated
that one penny should be paid to the chapel of
the Temple at Hirst to light the altar of the
Blessed Mary on the Feast of her Assumption,
and at the suppression of the order in 1308 we
have an account of the furniture of the chapel,
which included two chalices, one silver and one
gilt, a cross, a pyx, a censer, some half-a-dozen
service books and a few vestiments.®

When the Templars’ lands were seized in
1308, Sir John Crepping, the sheriff, made a
return which showed the total value of this
preceptory to have been £64 155. 23d., of
which sum the church of Kellington accounted
for rather more than half. At Temple Hirst
were some 200 acres of land, and the preceptory
itself, of which considerable remains still exist,
consisted of a hall, chapel, kitchen, larder, and
outbuildings.

At the time of the trial of the Templars,
Master John de Nassington, the archbishop’s
oficial, deposed that Sir Miles Stapleton and
Sir Adam Everingham had told him that they
were once invited with other knights to a banquet
given by the preceptor of York at Temple Hirst
and that when there they were told that many
of the brethren had come to that place for a
solemn feast at which they were accustomed to
worship a calf.“ Sir Miles Stapleton, who
figures in this story, made a grant to the Tem-
plars in 1302, and effected an exchange of lands
with them as late as 1304. Five years later
he had charge of the estates belonging to the
preceptory, then in the hands of the Crown.

Little is known of the preceptors of Temple
Hirst ; Robert Piron was preceptor at the time of
Henry Vernoil’s grant, and Ivo de Etton, who
occurs elsewhere as Ivo de Houghton, was
preceptor in 1308, when he was arrested to-
gether with Adam de Crake, ‘claviger.’ 7

75. THE PRECEPTORY OF TEMPLE
NEWSAM

The date of the foundation of this preceptory
is uncertain, but it arose from the grant of land
in Newsam, Skelton, Chorlton, and Whitkirk
made to the Templars by William de Villiers,
who died in 1181. This grant was confirmed
by Henry Lacy, who at the same time stipulated
that the brethren should return the estate of
Newbond which he had previously given them.®
It is possible, therefore, that the Templars had

* Ibid. 281. 8 Tbid. x :
“4 Wilkins, op. cit. 358. one
° Yorks. Arch. Fourn. x, 285.

* Thid. 439. * Thid. 432.
** Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 840.

259

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

settled at Newbond before they founded a pre-
ceptory at Newsam. In the survey of 1185”
it is stated that the property at Newsam, amount-
ing to 16 carucates, was obtained from William
de Villiers by purchase. At this time, Penhill
and Cowton seem to have gone with Newsam,
the total value of the whole being just under £10.
The church of Whitkirk was then returned as
in demesne, except the altar which Paul the
priest held for a yearly payment of 3 marks.
About the year 1200 Robert Stapleton obtained
licence from the Templars at their chapter in
London to build a chapel and establish a chantry
at Thorpe Stapleton, swearing fealty to the
Templars and reserving the offerings to the church
of Whitkirk. In 1291 the vicarage of Whitkirk
was returned as in the hands of the Templars
and worth £5.”

At the time of its seizure in 1308 the pre-
ceptory of Newsam was one of the most wealthy
in the county, the total value being returned as
£174 35. 35% With the exception of a chalice
worth 60s. the furniture of the chapel was plain.

Brother John, preceptor of Newsam, was
attorney for the Master of the Temple in 1293,”
and Godfrey de Arches, or de Arcubus, was
preceptor in 1308 and was then arrested, as were
also Raymond de Rypon, claviger, and Thomas
de Stanford, a brother in residence.

76. THE PRECEPTORY OF WESTER-
DALE

On 25 June 1203 King John confirmed to
the Templars the gift of Guy de Bonaincurt,
which Hugh Balliol had confirmed, of the vill

HOUSES

78. BAILIWICK OF YORK

The Order of Knights of the Hospital of
St. John of Jerusalem settled at Mount St. John
in Feliskirk in the 12th century and at Newland
and Beverley in the early years of the following
century. Upon the suppression of the Knights
Templars in 1312 they received a large accession

8 Exch. K.R. Misc. Bks. xvi, fol. 59-62.

8 Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 323.

6 Exch. Anct. Extents, 18, no. 7.

8 Assize R. 1101, m. 66.

8 Dorks. Arch. Fourn. X, 437, 439.

& \1S. in Muniment room, Kirkleatham Hall.

§§ Cal. Chart. R. 1226-57, p. 331.

8 Dorks. Fines, Fobn (Surt. Soc.), 4.

8’ Larking, Knights Hospitallers in Engl. (Camd. Soc.),
142.

%e Exch. Anct. Extents, 16, no. 11 ; 18, no. 10.
89 Yorks. Arch. Fourn. X, 432. © Wilkins, loc. cit.
Cal. Chart. R. 1226-57, p. 331.

Exch. Anct. Extents, 18, no. 8.

of Westerdale,“* and this was one of the estates
for which free warren was granted to the
Templars in 1248.

A moiety of the advowson of Beeford Church,
which was shared between the Templars and
the priory of Bridlington,® seems to have gone
with this preceptory.” In 1308 the Wester-
dale estates were valued at £32 195. 6d. and
the preceptory itself consisted of chapel, hall,
kitchen, and outbuildings.™

Two preceptors are known ; Stephen de Rade-
nache held that office in 1308," and during the
trial in 1310, Sir John de Eure said that once
William de la Fenne, ‘then preceptor of Wes-
dall,’ had dined with him, and after dinner had
produced a book which he showed to Sir John’s
wife. The lady found in it a paper containing
certain anti-Christian heresies, which she showed
to her husband ; the Templar then said with a
smile that he who wrote the paper was ‘a great
ribald,’ and took the book away. Brother Wil-
liam, who at this time was preceptor of Faxflcet,
said by way of excuse that he was a layman,
and so did not know what was in the book.”

77. THE PRECEPTORY OF WHITLEY

The manor of Whitley came into the hands
of the Templars before 1248, in which year
they had a grant of free warren on their lands
there.’ This property was valued in 1308 at
£130 155. 10s., and the live stock included two
saddle-horses belonging to William de Grafton,
preceptor of Yorkshire, and a black saddle-horse
belonging to the preceptor of Whitley, Robert
de Langton.”

OF KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS

of property in the county, but of the seven
Templar preceptories handed over to the Hos-
pitallers Ribston alone appears to have continued
in the independent position of a preceptory.

As in the case of the Templars, there seems
to have been a ‘chief preceptor’ for the county.
Nicholas de Cardinel witnessed a deed in 1189
as ‘Master of the Hospitallers of York’!;
Walter Dewyas was ‘rector of the Hospital of
St. John of Jerusalem in York’ in 1220,” and
Ralph de Castro was preceptor of Yorkshire in
rage

Besides their four preceptories the Hospitallers
had ‘camerae ’ at Copgrave, Huntington, and
Stainton.? These may at first have been under
the ‘chief preceptor,’ but seem in 1338 to have

‘ Anct. D. (P.R.O.), A. 6809.

* Cal. Chart. R. 1257-1300, p. 449.

* Cal. Pat. 1317-21, p. 80.

* Larking, Knights Hospitallers in Engi. (Camd. Soc.),
112-13.

260

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

been directly under the head house at Clerkenwell,
though Stainton, which had been bestowed on
the order about 1140, is said to have been
attached to the preceptory of Beverley.‘

79. THE PRECEPTORY OF BEVERLEY

A preceptory was established at Beverley at
the beginning of the 13th century, probably in
1201, when Sybil de Beverley, second wife of
the third Lord Percy, gave to the Knights
Hospitallers the manor of Holy Trinity, east of
Beverley, the manor of North Burton and other
lands. In 1338,° besides their house and grounds
at Beverley, the knights had some 350 acres at
Burton, 150 acres at Fitling, 120 at Walsay,
270 at Cleving, and about the same at Dalton.
The voluntary offerings collected in the district
were reckoned at £20, the whole issues being
rather over 125 marks. From this had to be
deducted various expenses for the exercise of
hospitality, as enjoined by the founders, and for
the support of the establishment, consisting of a
preceptor, Simon Fauconer, knight, and two
brethren, Simon Belcher, knight, and Philip
Ewyas, sergeant, two chaplains and clerks em-
ployed to collect the voluntary offerings, a
steward and the usual retinue of servants. The
clear yearly profits amounted to 60 marks. The
estates of the Templars’ preceptory of Westerdale
were at a later date put under the commander,
or preceptor of Beverley,’ and the total value of
the preceptory of Beverley was returned in 1535
as £164 9s. 10d. John Sutton was preceptor
at this time,® as he had been in 1528," and con-
tinued to hold the post until the suppression of
the order in 1540, when he was given a pension
af J 200."

80. THE PRECEPTORY OF MOUNT

ST. JOHN

Early in the reign of Henry I, William
Percy I gave to the Knights Hospitallers five
knights’ fees in the neighbourhood of Feliskirk,
and a preceptory was founded to the honour
of St. Mary. The advowson of the church of

* Poulson, Bever/ac, 780. Although in other parts
of the country the term ‘commandery’ was
commonly used for a house of Hospitallers, in York-
shire ‘ preceptory ’ is the usual form.

° Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. vi, 801.

® Larking, op. cit. 49-51.

” This is clear from several deeds at Kirkleatham.

® Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 142. * Thid. 69.

1 Land Rev. Misc. Bks. Ixii, fol. 1.

" L. and P. Hen. VIII, xvi, 379 (57).

” Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 803. Dugdale’s statement
(ibid. 838) that Mount St. John was given to the
Templars appears to be due to confusion with certain
grants in this district made to the Templars, whose
preceptory of Temple Cowton afterwards passed to
the Hospitallers of Mount St. John.

Feliskirk soon came into the hands of the Hos-
pitallers, whose right therein was acknowledged
by Robert Fossard in 1210.8 The church was
appropriated to the Hospitallers in 1279 and a
vicarage ordained.“ In 1338 the buildings at
Mount St. John were ruinous ; the total receipts
were about 873 marks, of which £26 came
from the church of Feliskirk and £13 65. 84d.
from the voluntary offerings made in the district.
There was a preceptor and one confrater, both
of them chaplains, and the usual staff of servants.
By their foundation ordinances they had to main-
tain hospitality and to make two distributions
yearly to the poor, the total deductions and
expenses coming to 37 marks. In 1535 the
gross value of the commandery was £137 25.
including property in Westmorland and Northum-
berland, £9 from collections made in Northum-
berland and £8 from similar collections in
Yorkshire ; the clear value was £102 1335. gd.'®

Precerrors oF Mount St. Joun

William de Reding 1

John de Thame, occurs 1338

Richard de Quertone, occurs 1365 8

John Kylquyt, occurs 1415.18

Thomas Pemberton, occurs 1528,'? 1534 1
Richard Broke, occurs 1539,” 154071

81. THE PRECEPTORY OF NEWLAND

The manor of Newland in Howden was
granted to the Knights Hospitallers by King
John, and a preceptory was founded there early
in the 13th century. During the reign of
Henry III the greatest benefactor of the house was
Roger Peytevin, lord of Altofts.* In 1338 the
manse was said to be in bad repair; there were
some 300 acres of land in Newland and ‘ Hoton’
(Howden), the voluntary offerings of the district
were reckoned at £20, and the whole issues
amounted to a little over 84 marks; from this
had to be deducted 453 marks for the expenses
of the household, consisting of the preceptor,
John de Wyrkelee, knight, and his confrater
John Molhiry, sergeant, achaplain, a squire, and

8 Yorks. Fines, Jobn (Surt. Soc.), 164.

“ Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 46-7.

8 Larking, op. cit. 117-18.

6 Var Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 94-5.

6a Occurs temp. Elias de Smitheton, prior of the
Hospital: Yorks. D. (Yorks. Rec.), 193.

Larking, op. cit. 48.

8 Cal. Papal Letters, iv, 15. © Tbid. vi, 354.

1% Land Rev. Misc. Bks. Ixii, fol. 1.

9a [and P. Hen. VIII, vii, 1675.

* Tbid. xiv (2), 62.

" Tbid. xvi, 379 (57); he received a pension of
too marks. In 1542, Richard Broke ‘ of the House-
hold’ received a grant of the suppressed preceptory
of Mount St. John ; ibid. xvii, p. 697.

*® Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 803.

261

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the usual servants.> There were also two
stewards, one for estates in Craven and the other
for those in Furness and Coupland, and Sir
William Scot, knight, was in receipt of a pen-
sion for life of 405.74

The Templars’ church of Whitkirk seems to
have been made over to this preceptory before
1402,” and the sphere of its bailiwick was much
enlarged in the process of time until in 1535 7°
it extended over Lancashire, Cumberland, West-
morland, and Nottinghamshire, as well as part
of Yorkshire, necessitating the employment of
thirteen bailiffs. The ‘Yorkshire rectories of
Darfield, Whitkirk and Kellington accounted
for £80; the offerings collected through the
fraternity of St. John the Baptist in the
counties other than Yorkshire amounted to
£243 the total issues came to £202 35. 8a.
The deductions amounted to £72 8s. 84d.,
including the stipends of a chaplain at Newland
and another at Stede (Lancs.), and the fees of
the numerous bailiffs and other officials ; the clear
value, therefore, was £129 145. 114d., of which
£88 9s. 6d. was paid over to the head quarters of
the order.

PrecepTors OF NEWLAND

John de Wyrkelee, occurs 1338”

Richard Cerne, occurs 1402, 1415
Alban Poole, occurs 1528 *°

Roger Boydell, died 1533 °™

Thomas Pemberton, occurs 1535”

? Cuthbert Leghton, last preceptor, 1540 *

82. THE PRECEPTORY OF RIBSTON
AND WETHERBY

Upon the suppression of the Knights Temp-
lars in 1312, seven out of their ten Yorkshire
preceptories were made over to the Knights
Hospitallers, but Ribston alone retained its inde-
pendent position as a preceptory. In 1338%
the estates of this preceptory were valued at
£167 115. 8d. of which some 30 marks came
from the appropriated church of Hunsingore, and
40 marks were estimated as obtainable for the
church of Whitkirk if it were leased instead of

* The washerwomen received the modest remu-
neration of 12d. a year.

* Larking, op. cit. 45-6.

** Whitaker, Leeds, 139.

*® aor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 68-9.

* Larking, op. cit. 46.

*° Whitaker, op. cit. 139.

* Cal. Papal Letters, vi, 354.

3° Land Rev. Misc. Bks. Ixii, fol. 1.

5a L. and P. Hen. VIII, vii, 1675.

31 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 68.

** He was given a pension of £60; L. and P.
Hen. VIII, xvi, 379 (57).
* * Larking, op. cit. 136-8.

being kept in their own hands. The preceptor,
John de Thame, chaplain, seems to have been
the same as the preceptor of Mount St. John at
this date;*4 he had two brethren with him,
William de Bautre, sergeant, and Amisius de
Cantebiry, chaplain. There were also two
pensioners who held corrodies (life grants of
board, lodging, and small stipends), given them
by the Templars, and the usual staff of ser-
vants, and the expenses of hospitality werc
heavy, as the preceptory lay on the road to
Scotland; the clear value, therefore, was only
£01 Is. 10d.

In 1422 the Grand Master of the Hospital
granted for ten years to Thomas Weston tlic
preceptory of Ribston, vacant by the death of
John Brimston, with its member Copmanthorpe,
vacant by the death of Thomas ‘Scquipuit’”
(probably Skipwith), ‘the last preceptor’ ; *° it
seems, however, pretty clear that Copmanthorpe
was not a preceptory, but merely a member of
Ribston. By the 16th century, Ribston, like
so many other preceptories of the Hospitallers, had
ceased to be the residence of any of the brethren
and was leased to lay farmers, who probably
maintained a chaplain. In 1529 Sir John Raw-
son, the prior of Kilmainham in Ireland and
nominal preceptor of Ribston, had leave to lease
the preceptory for three years to John Alen,
citizen mercer of London.*® The return of
1535 shows a gross value of £224 9s. 7d., out
of which £6 135. 4d. had to be paid to a chap-
lain celebrant at Ribston ‘of the foundation of
Mowbray’ and other £17 for the fees of
bailiffs and other officials.” The church of
Hunsingore is entered as ‘appropriated to the
monastery (sic) of Kilmayn in Ireland.’** In
1539, the year before the suppression of the
order, Sir John Rawson wrote to Cromwell
thanking him for giving the receivership of the
commandery of Ribston to Henry Gaderyke,
who had married Rawson’s niece.**

Preceptors oF RIBsTON

John de Thame, chaplain, occurs 1338 *°

John de Bromstone, or Brimston, occurs 1392,*!
dead before 1422”

Thomas Weston, appointed 14224

John Rawson, prior of Ireland, occurs 1529,
last preceptor *4

* Ibid. 48.

* Exch. K.R. Eccl. Doc. bdle. 18, no. 14.
* Land Rev. Misc. Bks. Ixii, fol. 2.

” Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 256.

* Ibid. 258.

* L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (2), 89.

* Larking, op. cit. 138.

" Select Coroners R. (Selden Soc.), 124.

“ Exch. K.R. Eccl. Doc. bdle. 18, no. 14.
* Ibid.

“ Land Rev. Misc. Bks. lxii, fol. 2.

262

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

FRIARIES

83. THE BLACK FRIARS OF
BEVERLEY !

The friary seems to have been founded by
Master Stephen Goldsmith before 1240, but the
town, the Crown, and in the 16th century Lord
Darcy, claimed the privileges of founders.2 The
provincial chapter was held here August 1240,
the king contributing to marks.’ In 1263,
Henry III gave the friars fifteen oaks for timber.‘
About 1269, Archbishop Giffard forbade them
in future to hear confessions of the parishioners
of the churches of St. Martin and St. Mary,
Beverley, except of those licensed by their
vicars.© In 1282, Archbishop Wickwane gave
10 marks to the friars.6 For the provincial
chapter held here in 1286, Queen Eleanor gave
100s. to the provincial prior, William de
Hothum’; the archbishop (John Romanus),
while excusing his attendance owing to urgent
business elsewhere, promised to aid and defend
the friars to the utmost of his power. In 1291
the archbishop asked these friars to co-operate
with him in preaching the Crusade by sending
preachers on 14 September to Preston or Hedon,
Ravenser, and le Wyk (i.e. Hull).°

Edward I, when at or passing through Bever-
ley, gave the friars alms several times between
1299 and 1304, through friars Richard of
St. Nicholas, Walter of Grimsby, Thomas of
Alverton, and Luke of Woodford, his confessor.
From the sums given it appears the brethren
numbered thirty-two or thirty-three in 1299,
increasing to thirty-eight in 1304? In 1310
the number had risen to forty-two, when
Edward II gave the friars 14s. for one day’s food
through Friar William de Burton." In the
years of scarcity which followed, Archbishop
Greenfield gave them three quarters of corn in
1314, the king one quarter (price 10s.) in 1318,
and one quarter (price 4s. 6d.) in 1320." In

1See ‘The Friars Preachers or Black Friars of
Beverley,’ by the Rev. C. F. R. Palmer, Yorks. Arch.
Fourn. vii, 32-43.

® Coll. Topog. et Gen. iv, 129; Leland, Isin. i, 47 ;
Exch. Issue R. East. 27 Hen. VI, m. 3.

3 Liberate R. 24 Hen. III, m. 7.

“Close, 47 Hen. III, m. 6.

5 Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 226.

6 Fasti Ebor. i, 323.

7 Exch. Accts, (P.R.O.), bdle. 352, no. 7.

8 Hist. P. and L. from the Northern. Reg. (Rolls
Ser.), 86. * Ibid. gs.

Exch. Accts. (P.R.O.), bdle. 356, no. 21;
Liber Quotid. 28 Edw. I. (ed. Topham), 25, 373
Add. MS. 7966 A, fol. 25 ; 8835, fol. 5.

Yorks. Arch. Fourn. vii, 34.

” Ibid. ; Fasti Ebor.i, 394; Add. MS. 17362, fol. 6.
Archbishop Melton gave them 20s, in 1328 ; Hist.
P. and L. from the N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 377.

1328 the number of friars was thirty-two, in
1335, thirty *; and about the end of the 15th
century, fourteen.'4

On Easter Sunday 1309 some friars admitted
to the sacraments some parishioners of St.
Martin’s, and Friar John of Lockington even
admitted an excommunicate person. At his
prior’s command he humbly begged pardon on
bended knees of the canons of Beverley, and the
prior engaged that his friars should not offend in
this respect in future.!®

The friars held their land, or a part of it, of the
Archbishop of York by a rent of 4s. a year, until
1311, when Simon de Kent of Beverley granted
the archbishop another rent of 45. in exchange.’
At the same time they sought to obtain from
Thomas son of Alexander of Holm a rent of
10s. and a void piece of ground adjacent to
their house ; the jurors declared the grant would
be prejudicial, and the royal licence was not
granted.” Simon de Fymere gave them some
land in Beverley shortly before 1329, apparently
without royal licence,!® and John Waltheof
of Beverley released them from a rent of 25.
which they paid ‘to the light on the beam’ in
the minster quire.’*

At a general chapter of the order held in
London, 1314, the Prior of Beverley was
deposed.” The provincial chapter met here in
1324, the king contributing £15 for three days’
food. Friar Robert of Querndon, who had
been confessor to Edward III, retired into the
convent of his brethren here, and when broken
with old age had an annuity of £5 assigned to
him, January 1351-2, out of a rent which the
Abbot of Hailes paid to the Crown.” William
Birde, prior, and Friars Thomas Bynham and
John Vele were sued by Walter Dunham in
1434 for a debt of 405.3 Friar William Leth,
O.P. of Beverley, had licence from Eugenius IV

in 1435 to hold an ecclesiastical benefice.”

Exch. Accts. bdle. 387, no. 9; Yorks. Arch.
Journ. vii, 34.

“ Coll. Topog. et Gen. iv, 130.

6 Beverley Chap. Act Bas. (Surt. Soc.), i, 243.

6 Pat. 5 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 11.

Ing. a.q.d. file 73, no. 5; Yorks. Arch. Journ.
vii, 33. Richard de Holme 1366, and John de
Holme 1421, desired to be buried in this church ;
Poulson, Beverlac, 767-8.

Pat. 3 Edw. III, pt.i, m. 9.

® Beverley Chap. Act Bks. (Surt. Soc.), i, p. lxxv ;
B. M. Lansd. Chart. 214,

1 Exch. Issue R. East. 16 Edw. III, m. 11.

7 Pat. 26 Edw. III, pt. 1, m. 33.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes (Yorks. Arch. Soc.), i, 10.

* Add. MS. 32446, fol. 58. Cal Papal Letters,
vili, 542.

263

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Early in 1449 the dormitory and library were
accidentally burnt down ; when Henry VI gave
10 marks ‘for the relief of their great poverty
and towards the rebuilding of their house.’ *

The friars received legacies from Sir William
Vavasour, kt. (1311),°° Sir Henry Percy (1349),
Sir Marmaduke le Constable, kt. (1377),
William Lord Latimer (1381), William de
Chiltenham, vicar of the chapel of Holy Trinity
of Kingston-upon-Hull (1388), Patrick de
Barton, rector of Catwick (1391), and many
others,” including Robert Fisher, mercer of
Beverley (1477), the father of John Fisher,
Bishop of Rochester." John de Hesile of
Beverley was buried in the cloister in 1349, next
his wife Beatrice? Thomas Hilton, clerk
(1428), willed to be buried in the church within
the south door next ‘le haliwater fatt.’*° In
the quire before the high altar were interred
the remains of ‘Elena de Wak, daughter and
heiress of Lord le Wak,’ and a long list of
burials in the church drawn up by John
Wriothesley, garter, about 1500 is extant.*
Among the names are several of the Darcys.
In 1524 the friars agreed with Thomas Lord
Darcy, K.G., by reason of his great liberality, to
make him and his wife partakers in all spiritual
suffrages in the convent, and to keep their obits,
under pain if they failed to carry out the agree-
ment of paying 20s. to the Provost of St. John’s,
Beverley, and 10s. ‘to the behoof of the scholars
of the Friars Preachers in Oxford.’ The seals
of the provincial Robert Miles, 8.T.P., the prior
Henry Aglionby, $.T.B., and the convent were
attached to the deed, for which Lord Darcy
pad Jf 5"

Two r4th-century manuscripts formerly be-
longing to the Black Friars of Beverley are
now at Oxford; one contains works of St.
Augustine, Gregory, Seneca, and others * ; the
other, containing a number of Quaestiones attributed
to Thomas Aquinas, was in 1450 lent or
given by Friar Robert Stanniforth, O.P. of
Beverley, to William Mayne.™

On 4 July 1534 Dr. George Browne visited

* Issues of the Exch. (ed. Devon), 463.

© Reg, Pal. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), i, 333. In 1312
the nuncupative will of J. de Harpham was proved by
Hugh of Leicester, prior of the Friars Preachers, John
of Lockington, O.P., and John of Grimsby, chaplain ;
Beverley Chap. Act Bks. (Surt. Soc.), 1, 301-2.

Test, Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), passim.

*STbid. ili, 227.

*B. M. Lansd. Chart. 304.

% Test. Ebor. i, 414. Stephen Coppendale desired
to be buried here, Jan. 1413-143 ibid. iv, 7 n.

51 Coll, Topog. et Gen. iv, 129, reprinted in Yorks,
Arch, Journ. vii, 37.

2 Yorks. Arch. Journ. vii, 39-40, from Poulson,
Beverlac, 768-70, and Aug. Chart. O.16. Cf. ‘The
Austin Friars of York’ in this volume.

8 Univ. Coll. Oxf MS. 6.

* Corpus Christi Coll, Oxf. MS. 225.

the friary (in accordance with the royal com-
mission issued 13 April), and had no difficulty
in obtaining the friars’ acknowledgement of the
royal supremacy.** The house was surrendered
to Richard of Ingworth, suffragan Bishop of
Dover, 26 February 1538-9.%° The plate was
sent to the royal treasury.” The lands attached
to the house, which lay on the north-east of the
minster, amounted to about 44 acres, and were
valued at 175. 8d. a year. Besides this, the
friars held land in ‘Coldon Magna’ within the
liberty of Beverley, the rent of which was
2s. 4d.°8

PRIORS

Walter of Grimsby,® 1309
Hugh of Leicester,*® 1312
William Birde,? 1434
Henry Aglionby,” 1524
Robert Hill, 1539

The seal is pointed oval, and shows St.
Dominic standing in a canopied niche with
nimbus, in the right hand a book, in the left
a sword. Legend: sIGILLU PRIORIS FRATR[U]
ORDINIS PDICATOR BEULACTI.“4

84. THE GREY FRIARS OF
BEVERLEY

The origin of the friary is obscure. It wasin
existence in 1267, when one of the friars
preached at Beverley on the feast of St. John,
and afterwards heard the confession of a woman
possessed by a devil.’ In 1274 deacon’s orders
were conferred on Peter de Nutel, and priests’
orders on Alexander de Willingham, Andrew de
Whitby, and John de Howm, all of this house.?
Archbishop Wickwane gave the Friars Minors
of Beverley 10 marks in 1282 ; * and Archbishop
Romanus, when organizing the preaching of the
Crusade in 1291, instructed them to send preach-
ers to Driffield, Malton, and South Cave.‘

Wright, Suppression, 191 3 Ellis, Ovig. L. (ser. 3),
ili, 179. The date is given in Mins. Accts. 30-1
Hen. VIII, no. 166.

*” Acct. of Mon. Treasure (Abbotsford Club), 17.

* Mins. Accts. 30-1 Hen. VIII (Yorks.), no. 166.

* Beverley Chap. Act Bks. (Surt. Soc.), i, 243.

“Tbid. 302. Deposed in 1314 (see above).

“ Baildon, Mon. Notes (Yorks. Arch. Soc.), i, 10.

* He was in the London convent at the time of
the dissolution.

® Mins. Accts. 29-30 Hen. VIII, 166.

“B. M. Seals, Ixxiv, 21. Engraved in Yorks.
Arch. Journ. vii, 41, and Poulson, Beverlac, 780.

* Lanercost Chron. 83. John of Beverley was a
Franciscan at Oxford c. 1250 : Mon. Franc. (Rolls Ser.),
1, 317, 393.

* Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 197.

3 Fasti Ebor. i, 323.

* Hist. P. and L. from the N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 95.

264

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

The house at this time was probably within
the walls, and the founder may have been John
de Hightmede.® ‘In 1297 William Lyketon
and Henry Wygthon bought certain lands near
Beverley, about the chapel of St. Elena, and
granted them to the friars of the order of St.
Francis, to build their houses; and also they
conferred many other goods on them.’® This
probably refers to the grant of a new site outside
Keldgate and near Westwood.’ In 1304 Wil-
liam Ros of Hamlake granted to the Prior and
convent of Warter a bovate of land in Warter
in exchange for their granting to the Minorites
3 acres of land in Beverley, adjoining the friary.®
The numbers of the friars remained about the
same for some years. In 1299 the number
varied from thirty-two to thirty-six ; there were
thirty-eight in May 1300 (when Edward I
gave them 38s. for three days’ food by the hand
of Friar Thomas Maynard) ; thirty-four in 1301,
thirty-eight in 1304, twenty-six in 1335, and
thirty-two in 1337.°

‘ Afterwards for a long time this house, through
poverty, was almost destroyed and uninhabited,
until one Sir John Hotham, of Scorbrough, near
Leconfield, kt., almost entirely rebuilt it.’
Hotham gave the friars the moiety of 1a. Ir.
in Beverley in 1352; and an entry in the
town documents in 1356 may refer to the
rebuilding : in that year Friar John Botiler,
O.M., on behalf of his convent, came to the
gildhall and obtained leave to take sand in
Westwood for building purposes. From the
time of this benefaction till the beginning of the
reign of Edward IV the Hothams were reckoned
the founders of the house, and several of them
were buried in the church: namely, Sir John
Hotham, Agnes his daughter, wife of Sir Thomas
Sutton, kt., and Sir Nicholas Hotham, kt.”
Others buried in the church were Sir Nicholas
Wake, Sir Geoffrey de Agulyon, kt., Lady Mar-
garet Agulyon, Elyna widow of Sir John Sutton,
kt., William Kelk, esq., Robert Cause, esq.,
John Routh, esq., Robert Routh, esq.!* Agnes
wife of John Kyler was buried in the cloister,
1380.4 In 1400 a chantry was established in
the church for the souls of Thomas Kelk and

®° Speed, Hist. fol. 1082.

® Coll. Topog. et Gen.iv,129. " Poulson, Beverlac,772.

§ Pat. 32 Edw. I,m. 2. About this time Friar
Robert of Beverley lectured to the Franciscans at Ox-
ford ; Mon. Franc. (Rolls Ser.), i, 553.

® Exch. Accts. (P.R.O.), bdle. 356, no. 21 ;_ bdle.
387, no. 9; Add. MSS. 7966 A, fol. 25 ; 88365, fol.
5; Cott. MS. Nero, C. viii, fol. 207 ; Liber Quotid.
28 Edw. I (ed. Topham), 25, 37.

" Pat. 26 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 20 ; Beverley Town
Doc. (Selden Soc.), 18.

” Coll. Topog. et Gen. iv, 129.

8 Tbid. Sir G. Agulyon or Aguyllun granted them
land in Beswick ; Early Chan. Proc. bdle. 22, no. 183.

™ Poulson, Beverlac, 772 ; from Lansd. MS. 896.

his son John, the twelve keepers of the town
being responsible for seeing that the services were
duly performed.” ;

In the troublous times at the beginning of the
reign of Edward IV, Thomas Bolton, $.T.P.,
the warden, tried to gain security for his convent
by granting the title of founder to Richard
Nevill, Earl of Warwick, and he subsequently
gave the patronage of the house to John Nevill,
Marquess Montagu. Both these having been
slain at Barnet in 1471, Bolton conferred the
title and privileges of founder on Henry Percy,
Earl of Northumberland.’® The earl, who died
in 1489, left nothing in his will to these friars.’”

Bequests were made to them by Sir William
Vavasour, 1311, Henry Lord Percy, 1349, John
de Ake of Beverley, merchant, 1398, Richard
Lord Scrope of Bolton, 1400, Sir William Nor-
manville, kt., 1449, and many others.!® Thomas
Walkington, rector of Houghton, in 1400 left
£4 to Friar William Burn, of this house.!® Guy
Malyerd, mercer, of Beverley, left twenty wains-
cots to each house of friars here in 1486.”
William Poteman, Archdeacon of the East Rid-
ing, left to each house a quarter of corn, 1493.71
A collection of sermons and a book of ‘exempla’
were bequeathed to the Grey Friars by William
Sherp, chaplain, in 1508, anda Bible by Thomas
Carr, vicar of Santon, in 1509.”

In 1516 Sir Ralph Salvayn, kt., granted to
them 60s. rent in Beswick.”

In 1522 Thomas Kodall, of South Ferriby,
Lincolnshire, esq., and Margaret his wife, gave
the friars an annual rent of 4s. for twenty-eight
years, probably to celebrate masses for the dead,”
and the friars also received 7s. 6d. a year from
land in Lund belonging to a chantry founded
by the Thwaytes family in the church of Lund.*

Dr. George Browne, visiting the friary on
4 July 1534, had no difficulty in getting the
brethren to acknowledge the royal supremacy ;
but he found there one friar, Dr. Gwynborne,
who had written seditious libels against the king’s
marriage, whom he sent to Cromwell with his
writings, describing him as ‘a lunatic or in a
frenzy,’ ‘poorly booked and poorly learned.’ *

At the beginning of October 1536 Chris-
‘opher Stapleton of Wighill, who had been ill
for sixteen years, was staying with his wife?” at

'° Beverley Town Doc. (Selden Soc.), 43.

'S Coll. Topog. et Gen. iv, 129.

” Test. Ebor. iii, 304 et seq.

* Ibid. passim ; Reg. Palat. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), i
3333 Poulson, Beverlac, 785.

* Wills and Invent. (Surt. Soc.), i, 50.

” Test. Ebor. iv, 19. 1 Thid. 81.

* Thid. 115 n.3 v, 219 n.

* Mins. Accts. 30-1 Hen. VIII (Yorks.), no. 166.

* Thid. * Thid.

* L, and P. Hen. VIII, vii, 953.

” Elizabeth daughter of Sir John Neville of
Liversedge, near Wakefield. See Chetwynd Stapylton,
The Stapletons of Yorkshire, 201 et seq.

3 acs 34

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the Grey Friars, Beverley, for change of air, as he
had been the summer before. He was joined by
his brother William, who had to delay his journey
to London owing to the rising in Lincolnshire.
The rebellion broke out in Beverley on Sunday,
8 October. The commons assembled on West-
wood Green, outside the Grey Friars. The
friars generally do not seem to have favoured the
movement (some of the rebels proposed to burn
the friary and those within it), but it found
ardent supporters in Christopher’s wife, and in
Thomas Johnson a/as Bonaventura, an Observant
Friar, who on the suppression of that order had
been assigned by the Warden of York to the
convent of Beverley. Friar Bonaventura did
much towards supervising the rising, and at
length by judicious flattery persuaded William
Stapleton to become leader. He offered himself
to go in harness to the field, which he did as far
as Doncaster, but then set off to the Minorites’
house at Newcastle-on-Tyne.”*

The friary was surrendered to the Bishop of
Dover by Thomas Thomson, warden, 25 Feb-
ruary 1538-9." The site occupied some 7
acres, and was valued at 26s. 8d. a year, rents
elsewhere bringing the total to £5 6s. 24.*°

WARDENS

Richard de Dalton, 1350 *!
Thomas Bolton, S.T.P., c. 1471
Thomas Thomson, 1538-9

85. THE GREY FRIARS OF
DONCASTER

The Friars Minors established themselves at
this town on an island formed by the rivers Ches-
wold and Don, at the bottom of French or
Francis gate, at the north end of the bridge
known as the Friars’ Bridge,' some time in the
13th century. NicholasIV, 1 September 1290,
granted an indulgence to those who visited their
church, which was of the invocation of St.
Francis.” Archbishop Romanus in 1291 en-
joined the friars of this house to preach the

*° L. and P. Hen. VIII, xii (1), 392. Bonaventura is
elsewhere described as an Austin Friar.

* The date is given in Mins. Accts. 30-1 Hen.
VII (Yorks.), no. 166. Cf. L. and P. Hen. VIII,
xiv (1), 348, 413.

* Mins. Accts. 30-1 Hen. VIII (Yorks.), no. 166.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 279.

' Fairbank, ‘The Grey Friars, Doncaster,’ Yorks.
Arch. Fourn. xii, 481; Leland, Jin. (ed. Hearne), i,
36; J. Tomlinson, Doncaster, p. vi. Leland, /¢in. iv,
21, erroneously says there was a house of Black Friars
in this town: and Cavendish says that Wolsey after
his arrest was lodged one night at the Black Friars.
See also Hunter, Sourh Yorks. i, 19 (will of Nic. Laun-
ger, 13438).

* Cal. of Papal Letters,i, 516 ; Test. Ebor. ii, 148 ;
cf. Levercest Chron. 187-8.

Crusade at Doncaster, Blyth (Notts.), and
Retford.?

In 1299 Edward I gave the friars 10s. through
Friar Edmund de Norbury, on the occasion of
his visit to Doncaster, 12 November: in January
1299-1300 he gave them 205. for two days’
food and 6s. 8d. for damages to their house when
he was at Doncaster, by the hand of Friar de
Portynden. On 8 June 1300 his son Edward
gave them Ios.,and the king in January 1300-1
gave them Ios. for the exequies of Joan, nurse
of Thomas of Brotherton. The friars at this
time numbered thirty.*

In 1316 Sir Peter de Mauley, lord of the
town of Doncaster, granted the Friars Minors a
plot of land, 14 p. by 6 p., adjacent to their
dwelling-place.®

In 1332 Thomas de Saundeby, the warden,
and Friars Nicholas de Dighton, Thomas de
Moubray, William de Halton, and John de
Brynsale, were sued by John de Malghum for
having seized and imprisoned him.® In 1335
the king pardoned them for acquiring in mort-
main without licence in the time of former kings
divers plots in Doncaster, now inclosed with a
wall and dyke, whereon they had built a
church and houses.’ Between 1328 and 1337
the number of the friars varied between eighteen
and twenty-seven, as is proved by the royal alms
granted to them by the hand of Friars John de
Bilton, Nicholas de Wermersworth, and others.®

Sir Hugh de Hastings, kt., in 1347 left the
friars 100s., 20 quarters of corn and 10 quarters
of barley.? A friar of this house, Hugh de
Warmesby, was authorized in 1348 to act as
confessor to Lady Margery de Hastings, Sir
Hugh’s widow, and her family.’? Her son Hugh
was buried in the church of St. Francis at Don-
caster, 1367." Another Sir Hugh Hastings in
1482 left a serge of wax to be burned here in
honour of the Holy Rood, and a quarter of wheat
yearly for three years.”

Among the bequests may be mentioned that
of Roger de Bangwell, rector of Dronfield, of
20s. to the convent and 12d. to each friar in
1366.% Thomas Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
1333, and Sir Peter de Mauley, 1381, were

* Hist. L. and P. from the N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 95.

“Exch. Accts. bdles. 356, no. 73; 357, no. 4;
Liber Quotid. 28 Edw. I (ed. Topham), 28, 40;
Add. MS. 7966, fol. 25.

* Pat. g Edw. I, pt. i, m. 8; Ing. a.q.d. file 110,
no. IO.

® Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 37.

” Pat. g Edw. III, pt. i, m. 11.

* Exch. Accts. (P.R.O.), bdles. 383, no. 14;
387, no. 9; Cott. MS. Nero C. viii, fol. 202, 205,
207.

° Test. Ebor. i, 38. ” Fasti Ebor. i, 444 n.

" Dict. Nat. Biog. xxv, 129. ™ Test. Ebor. iii, 274.

3 Tbid. i, 82, where the date is wrongly given,

“Yorks, Arch. Fourn, xii, 482; Hunter, South
Yorks. i, 18,

266

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

buried in the church; the latter left his best
beast of burden as mortuary and 100s. to the
convent.” John Mauleverer was buried in the
church of St. Francis and left 61b. of wax and
6 marks to the friars, 1451.® William Vasey,
alderman, left them 5s. a year rent to keep his
obit, 1515.” Robert Skirley of Scarborough,
who died at Doncaster, probably in this house,
was buried here, 1522, and left, among other
bequests, his horse as his ‘corse present.’ !8

George Danby, a friar of this house, formerly
warden of the Grey Friars of Scarborough, re-
ceived on 8 April 1480 a general pardon from
Edward IV for all offences committed by him
before 1 April.’

In 1524 Richard Wilford granted 29s. 6d.
yearly rent in Beighton, Derbyshire, for the use
of these friars for ever.”

Friar Thomas Kirkham was admitted D.D. of
Oxford in July 1527, his composition being
reduced to £4 ‘because he is very poor’; in
November he was dispensed from the greater
part of his necessary regency because he was
warden of the Grey Friars of Doncaster and
could not continually reside in Oxford.?"_ Thomas
Strey, a lawyer of Doncaster, left 20 marks to
the convent in 1530 and 26s. 8d. to buy the
warden a coat.”

Two Observant Friars, William Ellel and
Robert Baker, were sent after the suppression of
the order to the Minorite convent at Doncaster,
where they soon died, perhaps from severe
treatment.”> Robert Aske, the leader of the
Pilgrimage of Grace, when he went to Don-
caster to meet the royal commissioners, November
and December 1536, lodged at the Grey Friars
with his followers, the Duke of Norfolk being
at the White Friars.”

The house was quietly surrendered 20 Novem-
ber 1538 by the warden and nine friars, three
of them novices, to Sir George Lawson and his
fellows, who were ‘ thankfully received.’** The
goods, including a pair of organs, an old clock, a
table of alabaster, the coverings of five altars,
and eighteen ‘ cells de waneskott ’ in the dormi-
tory, were sold to Thomas Welbore for
£1 4s. 9d. Out of this sum £3 was given

% Test. Ebor. i, 116.

6 Tbid. ii, 148. Ibid. v, 59.

bid. v, 154. For other bequests see Yorks.
Arch, Fourn, xii ; Hunter, op. cit. 19 (will of Sir T.
Windham, 1521).

® Pat. 20 Edw. IV, pt. i, m. 21; Pat, 16 Edw.
IV, pt. i, m. 28.

” Mins. Accts. 30-1 Hen. VIII (Yorks.), no. 166.

" Little, Grey Friars in Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.),
282, 338.

” Test. Ebor. v, 296.

® 1. and P. Hen. VIII, vii, 1607.

* Engl. Hist. Rev. v, 3413 L. and P. Hen. VIII,
xii (1), 6.

% Wright, Supp. 167 ; Dep. Keeper’s Rep. viii, App.
ii, 19; L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (2), 877, 1064.

to the ten friars, and £1 135. 4d. paid to John
Roberts to redeem a chalice which the friars
had pledged for a debt. There were 43 fother
of lead, four bells, three chalices and two cruets
weighing 50 oz.%* The site and adjacent
grounds (including four fish-ponds) contained
about 64 acres, besides a cottage in Fishergate ;
these were let to Thomas Welbore for 36s. 84.7”
A manuscript of the chronicle of Martin of
Troppau formerly belonging to this friary was
in the possession of Ralph Thoresby in 1712.78

W ARDENS

Thomas de Saundeby,” 1332
Robert Acaster,®” 1372
Thomas Kirkham, 8.T.P.,?! 1527, 1538

The seal, of which a very indistinct impression
remains, represents a saint seated under a canopy
between two women.”

86. THE HOUSE OF WHITE FRIARS,
DONCASTER

The Carmelite friary—‘a right goodly house
in the middle of the town’1—was founded in
1350 by John son of Henry Nicbrothere of
Eyum with Maud his wife and Richard
Euwere of Doncaster, who gave the friars
a messuage and 6 acres of land.” The priors of
the order asked permission of the Archbishop of
York to have the place consecrated in 1351.3
The earliest bequest to them recorded was made
by William Nelson of Appleby, vicar of Don-
caster, in 1360.4 In 1366 Roger de Bangwell,
formerly rector of Dronfield, made his will in
the house of these friars, in whose church he
wished to be buried; he left 8 marks to the
convent, 2s. to each friar, his chalice and priest’s
vestment to the altar next to which he was to be
buried, and other ornaments to the great altar,
20s. to John son of Asherford, ‘if he is received
into the Carmelitesat Doncaster,’ and two-thirds

*® Mins. Accts. 29-30 Hen. VIII (Yorks.), no. 197 ;
Supp. P. (P.R.O.), iii, fol. 92,933; L. and P. Hen.
VIII, xiv (2), 782.

7” Mins. Accts. 30-1 Hen. VIII (Yorks.), no. 166.

8 <A Catalogue and Description of natural and arti-
ficial rarities in this Museum’ (printed at the end of
Thoresby’s Ducatus Leodiensis, ed. 1816), 83.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes (Yorks. Arch. Soc.), i, 37.

°° Ibid.

3) Little, Grey Friars in Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.),
282.

3? B.M. Seals, Ixxiv, 38.
Yorks. ii, 2.

1 Leland, J¢in. i, 36. See F. R. Fairbank, ‘The
Carmelites of Doncaster,’ in Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xiii,
262-70, where excavations on the site are described.

7 Ing. a.q.d. file 299, no. 12; Pat. 24 Edw. I,
pt. iii, m. 10, 9.; B.M. Harl. MS. 539, fol. 144;
Speed, Hist. fol. 1082.

® Harl. MS. 6969, fol. 49d.

‘ Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xiii, 191.

See also p. 729.
* Ibid. 786.

the plate, books, and ornaments of the same, is
printed in Poulson’s Beverlac.®

Richard de York, chaplain of Lythe in Cleve-
land, in 1437 left 3s. 4d. ‘hospitali sancte Trini-
tatis que vocatur Crosgarth in Beverlaco,’® and
Richard Beford, butcher, of Beverley, left a
similar sum in 1434, ‘pauperibus domus sancte
Trinitatis apud Crossebrigg.’

The hospital appears to have had no master or
warden, Leland’s reference to it is ‘ Trinity
Hospital yet (1532) standith in the hart of the
Toun. Sum say one Ake foundid it.’ ®

Tue Hosprrat oF St. Mary WITHOUT THE
Nortu Bar.—In Leland’s time there was ‘an
hospitale yet standyng hard without the North
Bar Gate, of the foundation of 2 merchant men,
Akeborow and Hodgekin Overshall. As I re-
membre ther is an image of Our Lady over this
Hospitale Gate.’ On 26 July 1434 Richard
Beford of Beverley, butcher, left 35. 4d. ‘ pauperi-
bus capelle beate Marie extra Barram borialem.’ 7
On 8 January 1466-7 William Tasker of
Beverley, chaplain, bequeathed 6d. ‘ pauperibus
domus elemosinarie beate Marie virginis extra
Barram borialem.’™ Henry son of John Holm,
late of Beverley, on 20 August 1471 7 left
6s. 8d. to the poor of the house, described
exactly as before, as did also John Midelton,
merchant, of Beverley, on 17 June 1475.7
John Ashton, mercer, of Beverley, a little earlier
described it in his will (21 November 1468) as
“domus oracionis extra barram borialem,’™ a
term he applied to the other hospitals in the
town. It must not be confused with a leper
house, also outside the North Bar, which was
quite distinct from it.

Tue Hospirat or St. Joun LarrcaTe.—
Of this hospital nothing is known either as
to its origin or history, but allusions to it are
met with in wills and other documents. On
8 January 1466-7 William Tasker of Beverley,
chaplain, bequeathed 6d. ‘pauperibus domus
elemosinarie Sancti Johannis in Laythgate.’’*
Robert Bentlay of Bentley left on 1 March
1467-8 the same sum ‘ hospitali Sancti Johannis
in Laythgatt.’”” On 21 November 1468 John
Ashton, mercer, bequeathed ‘domui oracionis
Sancti Johannis in Laregate’ 20d."% Henry
Holm, 6s. 8d. on 20 August, 1471, ‘ pauperibus

Tbid. 788-790, quoting Lansd. MS. 896, fol. 134.
7’ York Reg. of Wills, iii, fol. 524.

**Tbid. fol. 392.

°° Beverley Chapter Act Book (Surt. Soc.), ii, 346.
” Ibid.

7 York Reg. of Wills, iii, fol. 392.

7 Tbid. iv, fol. 46. ® Ibid. fol. 81.

™ Thid. fol. 1964. * Ibid. fol. 148.

76 Thid. fol. 46. ” Thid. fol. 57.

Thid. fol. 148.

393

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

domus Sancti Johannis in Lathgate,’’® and on

17 June 1475 John Midelron left 20d. ‘ domui
elemosinarie beati Johannis in Lathgate.’ #0

In a grant by Queen Elizabeth to the mayor,
governors and burgesses of the town is included
all that our tenement in Laregate in Beverley
aforesaid, one orchard and one close . . con-
taining by estimation one acre and a half of land
now or late in the occupation of certain paupers
called the Massendeu of St. John the Evangelist
in Beverley aforesaid abutting on the east part of
the aforesaid street called Laregate.’ *!

Tue Leper Hovusz ouTsipE THE NorTH
Bar.—This was probably the chief leper house
connected with Beverley. In 1402 John Kelk
appeared before the twelve governors of the town
in the Guildhall, and sought permission to erect
a certain porch (quandam porcheam) against the
said house outside the North Bar of Beverley for
the habitation of lepers, men and women.
Leave was granted to build the porch on a piece
of waste ground measuring 8 ft. by estimation.”
Several bequests were made to the lepers outside
the North Bar of small sums of money by Richard
Beford in 1434,® William Tasker in 1466-7,"
John Ashton in 1468,° Henry Holm in 1471,*
John Midelton in 1475, but for some un-
explained reason in none of these instances is any
house mentioned, the lepers ‘ dwelling’ or ‘ being’
outside the North Bar is all that issaid. Thomas
Burton, of Bainton, on 30 June 1473, left 12d.
to each lazar house in Beverley, and also ‘in
auxilium et relevamen domus lazari dicti Beverlaci
unum lectum scilicet unam culcitram, unum
bolstor, par lodicum, par linthaminum cum
coopertorio.’®* It seems not unlikely that it was
to this house that the bequest was made.

Oruer Houses.—In the grant of lands by
Queen Elizabeth to the town of Beverley is
included ‘all that tenement and one little garth
there [in Fishmarket] containing by estimation
one rood of land, commonly called St. John
Baptist Massendeu, now or late in the occupation
of certain paupers, abutting on the west part of
a street called Fishmarket.’® Beyond this
reference nothing is known about this hospital.

In 1394 a certain Margaret Taillor, a leper,
came before the twelve governors of Beverley in
the Guildhall, and asked for charity’s sake to have
a bed within the house of the lepers outside
Keldgate Bar, which petition was granted.”

York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 81.

Thid. fol. 96d.

9 Poulson, Beverlac, App. 37.

® Poulson, Beverlac, 771.

8 York Reg. of Wills, iii, fol. 392.

Ibid. iv, fol. 46. “Ibid. fol. 148. “Ibid. fol. 81.
7 Tbid. fol. 96d. Ibid. fol. 195.
Poulson, Beverlac, App. 36.

% Poulson, Beverlac, 773.

‘There was a Maison Dieu built by the gild
of St. Mary connected with St. Mary’s Church
in Beverley,” and another connected with the
minster ; but whether they were the same as
some already mentioned is not quite clear.

John Midilton, on 17 June 1475, bequeathed
12d. pauperibus in IV odlane, and the same amount
pauperibus domus in Dedelane, Beverley,” but other
mention of these houses has not been met with.

Poulson,® describing the Corporation Alms-
houses says: ‘These almshouses consist [in
1828] of four tenements in Lairgate called Bede-
houses, and of thirteen rooms near the south end
of Lairgate and nine similar rooms on the east
side of Butcher Row called the Maison-Dieus
formerly Ake’s Hospital founded in 1396. They
stand on the freehold property of the corpora-
tion, and are kept in repair by them ; but there
are no estates or funds specifically appropriated
to their support.” It seems likely that St. John’s
Hospital in Lairgate rather than Ake’s Hospital
on the Cross Bridge are, or were, perpetuated by
these almshouses. In 1889 these corporation
almshouses in Lairgate are described as being
four in number and called ‘ Maisons de Dieu.’

115. THE HOSPITAL OF BOROUGH-
BRIDGE

A hospital existed at one time in Borough-
bridge, but had already fallen into decay by
1297.4 Nothing is known of its history.

116. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. HELEN,
BRACEFORD

Res ap Griffith and Joan his wife in 1340
bought the advowson of this hospital from Philip
de Somerville, and next year regranted it to
Philip to hold for life.*#

An entry in Archbishop Kemp’s Register
records the institution, on 28 January 1433-4,
of John Nailston, priest, to the perpetual chantry
at the altar of the Blessed Virgin in the parish
church of Burton Agnes, and to the hospital of
Braceford annexed to the said chantry, vacant by
the death of William Foston, chaplain, and be-
longing to the gift of John Griffitz, kt., patron
of the said chantry and hospital. It was almost
certainly the hospital mentioned in the Taxatio
of 1291, where it is said that the hospital of
‘ Brayteford’ held at ‘Brayteford’ property of
the value of £4 7s.°° The mastership, might,

*. [hid. 727.

York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 962.

% Poulson, Beverlac, 799.

% Mins. Accts. bdle. 1084, no. 19.

a Yorks, Rec. Soc. xiii, 139, 151.

% York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 373.
% Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com), 305.

304

RELIGIOUS

apparently, be held by an unmarried layman, as
an undated petition of the 15th century relates
that the hospital or free chapel of Braceford,
here said to be of the king’s gift and foundation,
having fallen vacant by the marriage of Robert
Skerne, late possessor, the king had presented
Nicholas Calton, clerk.®”

On 10 April 1505 °° William Monceux, who
described himself as chaplain of the hospital of
the chantry of the Blessed Mary in Burton Agnes,
made his will, in which there is, however, no
allusion to the hospital.

CHAPLAINS OR KEEPERS OF THE HosPITAL

John Barnetby, presented 138g °*

Robert Skyrne, occurs 1399 *

William Kechyn, keeper, occurs 1413 °°
William Foston, chaplain, occurs 1433
John Nailston, chaplain, instituted 1433?
William Monceux, chaplain, died 1505 *
Thomas Pierson, last chaplain, alive 1552-3°

117. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY,
BRIDLINGTON

This hospital is said to have been founded by
the Prior and convent of Bridlington.* Alan de
Monceaux,® with the consent of Maud his wife
and Robert their son, gave to the poor of this
hospital land in Hertburn (in Barmston in Holder-
ness), for the soul of Stephen, Earl of Albemarle,
and Hawise his wife; and Walter Burdun,® of
Winkton, gave to the use of the poor in this
hospital land in Hertburn, with a turbary.

The hospital is again mentioned in a mandate,
15 September 1342,’ addressed by Pope Cle-
ment VI to the Archbishop of York and the
Abbots of York and Selby, to receive Maud,
relict of Master John de Bramham, physician, as
a sister of the hospital.

118. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. GILES
BY BROMPTON BRIDGE

Considering the frequent allusions to this
hospital before the Reformation, remarkably

% Early Chan. Proc. bdle. 75, no. 15.

8 York Reg. of Wills, vi, fol. 139.

% Cal. Pat. 1388-92, p. 156.

%> Ibid. 1399-1401, p. 3.

*9 Baildon, op. cit. i, 17.

100 York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 373. ' Ibid,

? York Reg. of Wills (Yorks, Arch. Soc.), vi, fol. 139.

3 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 8. Thomas Pierson
had been assigned 1oos. yearly, the full value of his bene-
fice, and was in receipt of this pension in 6 Edw. VI.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, iii, 86.

5 Poulson, Hist. and Antig. of the Seigniory of Holder-
ness, i, 225. Burton, Mon. Ebor. 245, places these
gifts in Winkton and not Hertburn, but his authorities
for his statements are in his yet unprinted Appendix.
Poulson’s statement seems, on the face of it, correct.

® Poulson, Hist. and Antig. of Holderness, i, 225.

” Cal, of Papal Letiers, iii, 86.

395

HOUSES

little is known about it. The former position of
the hospital is indicated by a farm called
St. Giles, on the south bank of the Swale.
At the present time there is no bridge near, and
it seems probable that when Catterick Bridge
was built (c. 1421) an older bridge near St. Giles
may have been discarded.

The hospital is alluded to under various
names,® but the formal designation appears to
have been that of the hospital of St. Giles,
juxta pontem de Brunton, or de ponte de Brunton.
In the chartulary of St. Agatha’s Abbey, Easby,°
there are some transcripts of 13th-century deeds
relating to the possessions of the hospital, many
of which the brothers of St. Giles exchanged for
others with the canons of Easby. These lands
lay in Marske, Scotton, Newton Morrell, &c.
Unfortunately only one can be dated, as c. 1220,
from the name of a witness. The others are
undated, and the names of the witnesses are
omitted. They indicate, however, that the head
was called the custos or magister indiscriminately,
and that the brothers were /fratres infirmi, who,
in the deed of c. 1450, speak of a grant being
made assensu capituli nostri, implying that the
establishment had the quasi-collegiate character
of a larger hospital.

In Kirkby’s Inquest it is stated that there were
8 carucates of land in Brompton Brigg, of which
the master of St. Giles held 2 bovates.!

There is a seal appended to an indenture
dated 29 June 1376 (among Sir John Lawson’s
manuscripts) between Richard of Richmond
and Elizabeth his wife of the one part and Sir
Walter de Wendeslaw master of the hospital of
St. Giles of Brompton Bridge and the brethren
and sisters of the same of the other part. It has
a figure (probably St. Giles) and two shields, (2)
vair a fesse (Marmion) (4) a bend between six
martlets (? Furnival). All that remains of the
legend is: . . . HOSPIT .. . CATERI. . It
should be noted that although the hospital is
called Brompton Bridge, the legend on the seal
is Catterick,”

Masters oR WarDENS

Robert, occurs 13th century (after c.1220)
John de Ellerton, occurs 1305 #
Roger de Skitby, occurs 1338 4

"In 1338 it is alluded to as the hospital of
St. Giles at Burgh (Brough) near Catterick, and in
1388 as the hospital of St. Giles near Richmond ;
Baildon, op. cit. i, 33. In 1352 it is called the
hospital of St. Giles near Catterick.

° Egerton MS. 2827, fol. 111, 127, 269, 2694.

” Kirkby’s Ing. (Surt. Soc.), 174. Mr. Skaife, ”
the editor, identifies Brompton Brigg with Brompton
on Swale.

1 Inform. given by Mr. H. B. McCall, Kirk-
lington Hall, near Bedale.

% Easby Chartul. (Egerton MS. 2827), fl. 111, &c.

® Baildon, op. cit. i, 33. 4 Ibid.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Simon de Wintringham, occurs 1343,'° 1352 "°
Walter de Wendeslaw, occurs 13767

John Hilyard, occurs 1388 *-1402
William Lister, occurs 1451 7°

119. THE HOSPITAL OF CRAYKE

An indulgence was issued in 1228 on behalf
of the hospital of the Blessed Mary ‘in the
meadows of Crak,’”° but no other reference to
this institution is known.

THE HOSPITALS OF
DONCASTER

Tue Hospiray oF St. James at Doncaster is
alluded to in 1222-3 as a leper-house, or at

120-1.

least partly so.! At the time of the suppression ™

it had become a free chapel only. Its freehold
land was 60s. a year; of copyhold it had none.
Roger Clarkson was the incumbent, and it was
half a mile from the parish church.

Archbishop Rotherham granted forty days’
indulgence in 1490 *8 to benefactors of ‘le spitil
extra australem portam ville de Doncaster.’

William, master of the House of Lepers at
Doncaster in 1287-8, impleaded Robert de
Gaste of Guseworth in a plea of novel disseisin.”

The little circular 15th-century seal * has a
figure of the patron saint with his pilgrim’s staff
and wallet. Of the legend in the field, no
more than the word sartncr is visible. The
seal is only 44 in. in diameter.

THe Hospirat oF St. NIcHOLAs, —
This hospital was founded by Robert de
Turnham in the reign of Richard I.%* The
founder made it to some extent dependent upon
his abbey of Bayham in Sussex,” and bestowed
upon it land in Beverley which he had bought
from the Abbot of Meaux,” and also land in

8 Whitaker, Richmondshire, ii, 177.

Sir John Lawson’s MS.

'§ Baildon, op. cit. i, 33.

18 Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 469.

19 Whitaker, Richmondshire, ii, 32.

° York Fabric Rolls (Surt. Soc.), 235.

| Protection for the sick and
12 Hen. III, m. 7.

™ Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 393.

> York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, fol.
[altered to fol. 247].

** Baildon, op. cit. i, 37.

® Cat. of Seal, B.M. 3058, xlvii, 1789.

7 The master and brothers held 12 acres and a toft
in Loversall which they could not alienate without
licence of the Abbot of Bayham ; Dugdale, Mon.
Angi. vi, 781 n.

8 Add. MS. 6057, no. 334.

Pat.

lepers ;

237

Braneham. For this latter estate his daughter
Isabel and her husband Peter de Mauley gave
to the brothers and sisters of the hospital of
St. Nicholas 51 acres in Balby in exchange,” and
their son, another Peter de Mauley, recovered
land in ‘Briddeshall’ against the master of the
hospital of St. Nicholas in 1250."

The only recorded master seems to be Henry,
who occurs in 1247.77

122. THE HOSPITAL OF HERFORD

The only mention of this hospital that has
been met with is the institution by Archbishop
Arundel of Ralph de Luceby, on 30 July 1389,
to the hospital of Herford in the diocese of York,
on the nomination of Thomas Barry, esq., the
patron.*? Its situation is unknown, unless it
was at Hartforth, in the parish of Gilling, or
possibly it may have been the hospital of Flixton,
which is close to the River Hertford, and is
described in 1448 as ‘in Hertforthlith.’ *

123. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JAMES,
HESSLE

In the latter part of the 12th century Henry
de Traneby granted to God and the hospital of
St. James of Hessle 1 acre of land with common
pasturage in the field of Hessle, near the mill,
between the land of Robert of Hessle and that of
Warren de Vescy, stretching towards the shore
of the Humber.*4

124. HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY MAG-
DALENE, KILLINGWOLDGRAVES

This hospital, which was situated about two
miles from Beverley, in the parish of Bishop
Burton, may have been founded by one of the
Archbishops of York, who had a manor-house in
the parish and were the patrons of the hospital.
In 1169 Archbishop Roger, considering the
calamity and misery of the poor sisters of ‘ Kyne-
waldgrave,’ confirmed to them his gift of the
tithes of his assart of ‘Bimannesconge.’ ** From
a charter of Edward III,** 22 June 1327, which
recites this with many other subsequent gifts, it
is evident that the hospital had in the mean
time become well endowed by the liberality of
a number of persons whose donations the king
confirmed. Until 1301 the sisters of the hospi-

® Tbid. no. 358.

| Ibid. 1045, m. 18.
* York Archiepis. Reg. Arundel, fol. 604.
3 Cal. Pat. 1446-52, p. 69.

* Guisborough Chartul. ii, 263.

% Dugdale, Mon. vi, 650.

°° Pat. 1 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 9.

* Assize R. 1046, m. 28.

306

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

tal alone are mentioned in the grants, as if the
hospital had been a foundation for women only ;
but in a later grant (the date of which is not
recorded) by Roger the son of Hervey of Moles-
croft the brothers as well as the sisters of the
hospital are named,*” and although the sisters are
more frequently mentioned, the foundation com-
prised brothers up to the time of its dissolution ; for
Isabella Swales, one of the sisters, on 21 May 1536
bequeathed a maser as an heirloom to the house,
directing that it was to be in the keeping of the
eldest brother or else of the eldest sister.

In 1352 Pope Clement VI granted a relaxation
of a hundred days of enjoined penance to peni-
tents visiting the church of the poor hospital of
St. Mary Magdalene, Killingwoldgraves, on the
feast of the patron saint ; and at the same time
he issued a mandate to the archbishop to cause
Maud de Beverlaco to be received asa sister, if
she was found to be fit.*®

In 1355 Edward III granted licence to the
sisters to hold certain messuages in Beverley and
Walkington with rents given them by William
and Nicholas de Spaigne. In 1399 Alice de
Burton, Alice de Ferriby, and Maud Rydell,
sisters of the hospital of Killingwoldgraves, came
before the twelve governors of Beverley and
sought leave to have one bull, twelve sheep, and
twenty swine in the Westwood of Beverley, a
portion of land comprising 400 acres which was
leased to the commonalty of Beverley by the
archbishop. In 1530 we find the chapter, of
Beverley paying £1 45. to the sisters of the
hospital,*! and two years later a similar annuity
was being paid to the brothers and sisters.

There was a chaplain, whose stipend was
reckoned in 1527 at 5 marks, besides the master,
whose stipend was 26s. 74. The mastership
was usually held by clergymen of distinction in
the diocese, and in several instances by the
suffragan bishop.

Masters

Willelmus ‘ Pharen’
1399

William de Scardeburgh,* occurs 1411

Richard Bowett,* occurs 1414

Thomas Bryan,“ occurs 1423

Thomas Tanfield,” admitted 1449

John Cromwell, died 1486 #

William, Bishop of Dromore,** admitted 1486

episcopus,’ “* admitted

*” Dugdale, Mon. vi, 650.

* Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), vi, 53.

® Cal. of Papal Letters, iii, 464.

“ Beverley MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), 63.
" Poulson, Beverlac, 621.

“S.P. Dom. Ret. by Brian Higdon.

“ Dugdale, Mon. vi, 650. “ Thid.

‘6 Baildon, op. cit. i, 99.

” Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), iii, 214 n.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, fol. 54.
“ Thid.

dale, Mon. vi, 613.

John Riplingham, died 1507

John Hatton, Bishop of Negropont,®! ad-
mitted 1507

Christopher Wilson, occurs 1527 ™

William, ‘ Dariens episcopus,’ resigned 1543 °°

Robert Warde, S.T.B.," 1543

HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY AND
ST. ANDREW, FLIXTON

(OTHERWISE CARMAN-SPITLE)

125.

According to the Letters Patent of Henry VI
in 1448,"° confirming the original foundation, the
deeds concerning which had, it is stated, been
burnt, the hospital was founded in the reign of
King Athelstan by a certain knight named Ace-
horne, formerly lord of Flixton, and was to
consist of an alderman and fourteen brothers and
sisters, and the object of the foundation was the
preservation of travellers from the wolves and
wild beasts then infesting those parts. For this
end Acehorne endowed the hospital with a toft
and croft, and two selions of moor and pasture
land in Flixton, and also gave the alderman,
brothers, and sisters common of pasturage for
twenty cows anda bull in Flixton. From time
out of mind the alderman, brothers, and sisters of
the hospital had possessed 30 other acres of arable
land in Flixton, the gifts of various persons.
Some doubt is, perhaps, cast on the date assigned
to the foundation of the hospital by the entries
made under the head of Flixton in the Lay
Subsidy Roll, 25 Edward I (1297), printed by
Mr. William Brown,*’ where the entry ‘De
Acone Horn’ xij4’ has a curious resemblance to
the name of the reputed founder of the days of
King Athelstan. It may be added that of the
sum of 14s. collected in Flixton, the hospital of
St. Andrew paid 2s. 6d., the largest sum of any
in Flixton.

The Letters Patent record that the vicar
of the parish church of Folkton, in which parish
Flixton is situated, was accustomed, time out
of mind, to come to a certain chapel within
the hospital dedicated to God, the undefiled
virgin Mary, mother of Christ, and St. An-
drew, and there to celebrate solemnly the
mass cum benedictione calicis, and after mass to
bless bread and water, and to divide the bread
and sprinkle the water among those who had
heard the mass. Many of the popes, it is added,
had granted great indulgences and remission of
sins to each person who heard the mass and
received the aforesaid sanctified bread and water.

5° York Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 31. 5! Tbid.
7 §.P. Dom. Ret. by Brian Higdon.
8 York Archiepis. Reg. Lee, fol. 744. * Ibid

° Pat. 25 Hen. VI, pt. ii, m.17, printed in Dug-
See also Anct. Pet. 9795.
57 Yorks. Arch. Soc. Publ. xvi, 138.

3°]

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The evidences of the hospital concerning all
these matters having been lost, and danger aris-
ing to the king’s lieges who in the winter or at
night sought hospitality there, the king confirmed
all the rights of the hospital, and incorporated it
under the name of the alderman, brothers, and
sisters of Carman-Spitle. It is not mentioned in
the Valor Ecclesiasticus, and probably was not a
religious foundation in the stricter meaning of
the term, as there is nothing to indicate that the
alderman wasa clergyman, nor is there any men-
tion of a chaplain, nor in such lists as exist of
the clergy of the East Riding before the Refor-
mation is there any record of the name of a
priest connected with the hospital, There is no
mention of it in any of the wills connected with
Folkton or Flixton extant at York, unless
there isan indirect reference to the hospital in a
bequest by John Fishburn, rector of Folkton, in
1437, of 20s. to each of the two fraternities
existing in his parish.°8 “There is, moreover, no
reason assigned for the name of Carman-Spitle,”
under which the hospital was incorporated by
Henry VI. The site is now occupied by a farm-
house. Only one name of an alderman is known,
that of Richard Perron, whose name occurs in
the Letters Patent of 1448 as then in office.

126. FANGFOSS HOSPITAL

When Ralph Lutton, esquire, of Knapton, was
giving in his genealogy, he showed two Latin
deeds wherein Sir Thomas Lutton of West
Lutton had bequeathed in 1300 to Robert of
Fangfoss, son of ‘ James de Hospitali juxta Fang-
foss,’ 4 tofts and crofts with 8 bovates and 83a.
of land in West Lutton.*' The hospital was
clearly in existence in 1267, when Philip le
Waleys, ‘of the hospital of Wangefosse,’ was
accused of assaulting Alan son of Agnes in
Pocklington,” and is again mentioned in 1352,
when Nicholas Marchaunt, ‘staying in Fangfosse
spitell,’ murdered Thomas de Mikelfield.™

127. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY
MAGDALENE, NEWTON GARTH,
HEDON

This hospital was founded by William le
Gros, Earl of Albemarle, prior to 1179, in which
year he died. The foundation charter is not

58 York Reg. of Wills, iii, fol. 4924.

8° The hospital stood on the edge of lands called
“the Carrs.’

® Glover, Visit. of Yorks. (ed. J. J. Foster), 172.

| From information given in the Yorkshire Weekly
Post (2§ Jan. 1908) by Mr. George Beedham of
Stamford Bridge, in reply to a question asked.

§ Assize R. 1051, m. 40.

Gaol Delivery R. 215, m. II.

extant, but in the grant to the hospital by Henry
II ofa yearly fair ae the feast of St. Mary Mag-
dalene and seven following days, the inmates of
the hospital are said to have been placed there by
William, Earl of Albemarle, and in a deed by
which the confratres leprost of the hospital
granted their chapel of St. Mary Magdalene at
Hedon to William de Ederwic, they refer to
William, Earl of Albemarle, as their founder.™

Newton Garth, where the hospital stood, is a
little distance from Hedon itself, but was anciently
within the territory of the borough, and the in-
mates were called the infirmi de Hedona and
leprosi de Hedona.®

On 5 April 1301 Edward I granted the
master and brethren of the hospital of St. Mary
Magdalene of Newton juxta Overpaghele (now
High Paull, adjoining Hedon), in Holderness, free
warren in their demesne lands of Newton.

In 1334-5 ® Richard Choldel and Alice his
wife recovered seisin in the king’s court held at
Hedon against Richard de Potesgrave, master of
the hospital of Newton, near Hedon, and Adam
de Brunne, chaplain, of a corrody which con-
sisted of a chamber in the hospital close; also
soup and two loaves of good bread daily, 28 /agenae
of the better ale of the hospital each fortnight,
and other food and pittances, as a superior
brother of the hospital, besides 3,000 turves
yearly, with thatch and straw for the chamber, a
stone of fat at Martinmas, 5s. 6d. yearly, and
pasturage for six ewes and their lambs.

The mastership was evidently a piece of pre-
ferment of consideration, and sought after. On
29 April 1427 Pope Martin V granted a dis-
pensation to Thomas Bourchier, master of the
hospital of St. Mary Magdalene, Newton Garth,
who was in his sixteenth year only and of a race

* For those documents see Boyle, Early Hist. of
Hedon, App. EE, pp. clxxxvii—cxc. The fair granted by
Henry iI was heldon Maudlin Hill, and Mr. Boyle
points out (p. 160) that the chapel of St. Mary Mag-
dalene, to which William de Ederwic was appointed,
was not the chapel of the hospital, but a chapel built
by the hospital near Maudlin Hill for the people who
attended the fair.

* In the Monasticon (vi[z] 730) the hospital of
St. Mary Magdalene is first called the ‘ Hospital of
Newton in Yorkshire,’ and the judgement by Arch-
bishop Rotherham in regard to the dispute as to the
mastership is quoted from his Register. On p. 747
of the same volume the hospital is again entered as
the ‘ Hospital of Newton in the Deanery of Holder-
ness,’ but it is said that it was a different hospital,
although the same valuations are given, and the same
quotation made from Rotherham’s Register ! To make
things still worse, St. Sepulchre’s Hospital at Hedon
is entitled (p. 654) in the account given of it, ‘The
Hospital of Hedon or Newton St. Sepulchre,’ whereas
St. Sepulchre’s Hospital wason the north of the town,
and altogether remote from Newton.

* Boyle, Early Hist. and Inst. of Hedon, &c. 163.

” Cal. of Papal Letters, vii, 563-4.

308

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

of great nobles and held the mastership, which
was without cure (of souls) and wont to be
assigned to secular clerks as a perpetual benefice,
not exceeding £20 a year, that after he had
attained his twentieth year he might hold any
two benefices for life with or without a cure.
This young master was the Thomas Bourchier
who from the see of Ely was translated to Can-
terbury in 1454, became Lord High Chancellor
in 1455, and a cardinal in 1464. He died in
1486.

In 1485 the mastership was claimed by
Edmund Lichfeld and Edmund Percy. Arch-
bishop Rotherham confirmed Mr. Edmund Percy
in the mastership, and assigned Mr. Edmund
Lichfeld an annual pension of 100s. The arch-
bishop’s adjudication was confirmed by Robert,
the Dean, and the Chapter of York, and accepted
by Edmund, custos sive magister of the hospital,
with the confratres and sisters of the same, in the
hospital on 14 January 1485-6.

In 1526" the mastership was valued at
£21 2s. 8d., and the chaplaincy or office of
cantarist in the chapel at 100s. a year. At the
time of the Valor Ecclesiasticus the annual value
of lands and rents of the hospital was estimated
at £40. Alms to the amount of 3s. 4d. were
given at the obit of the founder, and five
eleemosinarii each received 345. 8d. They were
John Holme and his wife, Christopher Armerour,
William Mase, and John Newby, all appointed
by Royal Letters Patent.”

In 1552-37 it was reported under ‘ Newton
Garth in Holdernes’ as follows: ‘ Johan Nanby
one of the systers of the lait hospital of Newton
Garthe in holdernes of thage of liiij" yeres havyng
to her pencon xxxiiijs. by yere and none arrereges
of her seid pencon at michelmas last and haith
not alyned ne sold the same. Alice Thornton
obijt in october anno quinto Regis nunc, with
lyke pencon and not paid for oone half yere
endyd at martymes anno predicto and the seid
pencon not sold.’

About the middle of the 19th century a
vesica-shaped seal was dug up at Hedon rin.
by 1 in. in measurement. In the upper part
are two demi-figures with nimbed heads, ap-
parently SS. Peter and Paul. Below is the
kneeling figure of an ecclesiastic. The whole
is very rudely executed. Mr. Boyle deci-
phered the legend ‘S. mag’ri Simonis domus b’te
marie.’ 7?

The assumption made both by Poulson and
Mr. Boyle that the seal is that of a former master
of Newton Garth Hospital needs proof.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, fol. 604.

® §.P. Dom. 1526 (Return by Brian Higdon).

” Boyle, op. cit. 164.

7 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 76, no. 23.

™ Boyle, op. cit. 165 ; a photograph of an impres-
sion is given on a plate facing p. 48, and there is a
woodcut in Poulson’s Holderness, ii, 196.

Masters
Simon ?78
William de Sancto Oswaldo, occurs 13107
John de Rolleston, occurs 1315 7
Walter de Assherugge, appointed 1316 %
Richard de Potesgrave, occurs 1334-5,”
134278
Richard de Retford, occurs 1354.7
Alan Boole, before 1371 ®
Robert de Muskham, occurs 1378 ®!
John Frankyssh, occurs 1388 ®
Thomas Bourchier, occurs 1427 8
Edmund Percy, 1485 °4
Mr. Robert Gilbert, 1526 ®
— Woodhall, 1535 *

OTHER HOSPITALS OF
HEDON

Tue Hosprra, oF Sr. SEPULCHRE.—This
hospital, which stood on the north of the town,
west of the road to Preston, was founded by Alan
Fitz Hubert, who granted to the lepers of St. Se-
pulchre of Hedon 7 acres, being the site on which
the buildings were erected, and adjacent lands.
Another gift, by Peter Hog, burgess of Hedon, was
to the master, brothers, and sisters of the hospital.
Elsewhere the master and brothers are generally
spoken of, or the latter only. In a fine, the
prior of the sick people of Hedon is mentioned,
and this is believed to refer to the head of
St. Sepulchre’s Church.

‘The founder and his descendants retained
the right of presenting a man or woman, whole
or infirm, to be provided for in the hospital. If
the person chosen was a priest, or below that
order, he was, nevertheless, to dine at the common
table, and sleep in the dormitory of the lay
brethren, and to wear the same apparel... .
In addition to this, the hospital was held bound
to receive any afflicted person, allied to the
founder or his heirs within the fourth degree of
blood, and sufficiently to provide for him.’ ®”

In an inquisition of 1276 the commissioners
reported that the brethren of the hospital of

128-30.

73 See Boyle, op. cit. 165.

™ Memo. R. (K.R.), 3 Edw. II, m. 25 d.

Cal. Pat. 1313-17, Pp. 339-

78 Baildon, op. cit. i, 149.

® Assize R. 1129, m. 4d.

® Baildon, op. cit. i, 149. 5! Tbid.

% Ibid. 8 Cal. of Papal Letters, vii, 563-4.

% York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, fol. 604

8 S.P. Dom. 1526 (Return by Brian Higdon).

8 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 113.

8’ Boyle, op. cit. 168, citing Poulson’s Holderness,
ii, 195. Mr. Boyle notes that Poulson’s authorities
for his statements are erroneously described, and says,
‘I am convinced that Poulson quoted from some
volume, probably in the Burton Constable Library,
which contained transcripts from the Hull Records.’

399

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

St. Sepulchre had inclosed a place which used to
be common.®

On 27 February 1468 Joan de Twyer directed
in her will that she was to be buried in the
chapel of the hospital of St. Sepulchre juxta
Hedon, and bequeathed to the master of the
hospital a ewer and basin, and a brazen mortar.*®

On 15 August 1490 Robert Twyer directed in
his will that he was to be buried in the church
of St. Sepulchre beside Hedon, near the tomb of
Sir William Twyer, kt., his ancestor.” In the
Valor Ecclesiasticus the yearly revenue of the
hospital is set down as {11 18s. 4d. In 1526
the mastership was reckoned at £4 a year.

Masters

Ralph, occurs 1210-119)

Peter, occurs 1256 ®

Robert, occurs 1282 %

Alan Grass, occurs 1388 %

Richard Sprotlay, occurs 1468

Mr. William Wight, occurs 1526 %
Silvanus Clifton, occurs 1535, 1538 ®
Edmund St. Quintin (last master)

Tue Hosprrar or Str. Leonarp.—Among
the town records of Hedun there are several
allusions to this hospital,’ and in a defective
Sheriff Tourn roll of the time of Henry IV
there is a statement that ‘Lenardgote’ was
defective, and that it ought to be repaired ‘ per
magistrum hospitalis Sancti Leonardi’ and a
certain William Alnewick.1 The hospital stood
on the west of a road called Woodmarket Gate.

Tue Hospirar oF THE Gitp oF THE Hoxy
Cross.—Licence was granted by Richard II,
5 July 1392, to John de Burton and Henry
Maupas, to convey a toft in Hedon to the masters
and brothers of the hospital of the gild of the Holy
Cross of Hedon to find a candle to burn every
feast day in the church of St. Augustine of
Hedon before the high cross.?

The gild of the Holy Cross at Hedon main-
tained a chaplain who said morning mass at one
of the altars in St. Augustine’s Church for the
souls of departed members of the fraternity? It

* Boyle, op. cit. 26.

* Poulson, Holderness, ii, 196.

* Ibid. * Baildon, op. cit. i, 88.

* Poulson, Holderness, ii, 196.

* York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 130.

* §.P. Dom. 1526 (Return by Brian Higdon).

” Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 113.

°° Poulson, Holderness, ii, 196. %® Ibid.

'® Boyle, op. cit. 208 n., 209 n., 211 n., pp. xlviii,
xlix, xi, clxvii.

‘Ibid. quoting Hedon Corp. Rec. ii, 484.

*Yorks, Chant Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 558, citing
Pat. 16 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 29.

* Boyle, op. cit. 174.

possessed considerable property in the town, and
some of its work seems to have been that of a
benevolent society. In an inquisition held in York
Castle in 1613 two messuages called God’s Love
Houses, on the south side of the church of St.
Augustine, are named as having belonged to the
gild. Possibly these represented the old hospital.‘

131. CHARTERHOUSE HOSPITAL,
HULL

In the Letters Patent of Edward III, granting
licence to Michael de la Pole to found the
Carthusian monastery outside Kingston-upon-
Hull, provision was made for thirteen poor men
and thirteen poor women to be included in the
scheme. They might either be a part of the
Carthusian monastery or distinct from it, as the
founder determined,

It would seem that the Carthusians were
established in an already existing ‘Maison Dieu ’*
or hospital in the manor of Myton, outside Hull,
and presumably the monks and the poor brethren
occupied the same set of buildings. But appar-
ently in 1383 the two foundations were
separated, and Michael de la Pole gave two
messuages to the east of the monastery to the
master and brethren of the Maison Dieu, with
lands in Cottingham and Willerby.”

By his charter, dated at Hull on 1 March
1394, Michael de la Pole founded, adjoining
the Charterhouse on the east, a hospital, with
1} acres of land there, for thirteen poor men and
thirteen poor women, feeble and old, which hos-
pital was to be known for ever as ‘God’s House
of Hull.” Richard Killam, priest, was appointed
the first master, and every master was to bea
priest and thirty years of age and bound to
personal residence. The poor folk were to
render obedience to him, and he was to have a
residence near the hospital and £10 yearly. He
was to say mass daily in the hospital chapel, and
the poor folk were to resort daily ‘ before dinner’
to hear Divine service, and say their own
prayers, and then in the afternoon to betake
themselves to some honest occupation. They
were to pray for King Richard and the founder
and other persons named, and the master was to
give them each 40s. a year for their necessaries,
viz. 8d. a week to each, and the residue of the
40s, at the four terms of St. Michael, Christmas,
Easter, and the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.

Vacancies of the mastership, or among the poor
folk, were, during the founder’s life, to be filled
by the founder, and after his death by his heirs,
lords of the manor of Myton, if of full age.

‘Ibid. App. i.

5 Pat. 51 Edward III, m. 10.

*Pat. 2 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 36; Dugdale, Mon.
Angi. vi, 21.

Pat. 7 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 32.

310

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

If the heir was a minor, and the appointment
was delayed for a month, then during the next
fortnight the Prior of the Charterhouse was to
appoint. If he failed, then the mayor, and again
if the mayor failed within his fortnight, then the
Archdeacon of the East Riding or his official was
to make the appointment.

Provision was made for the annual rendering of
the accounts of the house. A chest was to be
kept in the treasury of the adjoining priory, into
which the founder had placed 100 marks of
silver. It was to be under the custody of the
master, the prior, and the mayor. The 100
marks was to be lent out, and the interest
placed in the chest and added to the capital.
By licence of King Richard, the founder gave
also 5 messuages in Kingston-upon-Hull, and
land and pasture in Cottingham and Willerby,
A considerable addition to the endowment of
this hospital of Myton was made in 1408 by
Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, Sir Edmund
de la Pole, and Robert Bolton.®

The hospital escaped at the dissolution of
the priory, and in the chantry certificates® is
described as ‘Thospitall of Saint Mychaell,
commonlie called Goddes House without the
Gates of Hulle.’ William Man was then
master, and there were only six brothers and six
sisters, owing to the decay of the endowment
first given at the foundation, which in this case
is stated to have been 12 March, 7 Richard II
[1384-5]. The hospital was said to be within
Trinity parish, and it was needed for the
living of the master and relieving of poor and
impotent people, with twelve persons then in the
house. The goods, ornaments, &c. as by
inventory were valued at £4 75. 8d., and the
plate at 42s. The whole of the other tene-
ments and rentals after deducting reprises, &c.
amounted to £61 1s. There was the site of the
house and houses for sixteen poor people under
one roof, the chapel, three gardens separated, with
a highway leading to the late Charterhouse, and
environed with a brick wall, and containing an
acre and a half of ground.

In 1571 the mayor and aldermen com-
plained to Archbishop Grindal against Thomas
Turner that during the thirteen years he had
been master he had misused the hospital, ‘not
only in receiving and admitting thither such as
be neither halt, lame, nor blind, but such as are
well to live in the world, and have plenty of
money, so as to let it out to usury. As also in

*Pat. g Hen. IV, pt. ii,m. 14; 10 Hen. IV, pt. i,
m. 3; Anct. Pet. 12517.

* Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 338.

*Tickell, Hist. of Hull, 227-37. The mayor and
aldermen describe themselves as the patrons of the
hospital ‘of the Holy Trinity nigh Kingston-upon-
Hull aforesaid, otherwise called God’s-house, or the
Hospital of St. Michael.? The true invocation would
therefore seem to be that of the Holy Trinity.

311

letting out of leases of such lands and tenements
as belong to the hospital, as well in reversion
as by surrender of the old leases, and that for
many years, and taking great fines, and incomes
for the same,’ &c.

Eventually four of the aldermen with the two
chamberlains and the town clerk examined the
master’s accounts for 1560 to 1571, and found
him on various heads indebted to the hospital to
the amount of £69 18s. 3d. Turner urged that
he had only followed the example of his pre-
decessors, and had not acted mala fide. This
excuse was accepted, and it was decided not to
compel him to make restitution ; but they ex-
amined the leases he had let, and as he had
granted some for unusually long periods, and
others in reversion, these were declared void. All
were given up, and fresh leases for twenty-
one years were granted with the assent of the
brothers and sisters of the house. For the better
rule of the hospital in future seventeen ordinances
were compiled, which can only be briefly men-
tioned here. In the first place the original
ordinances were to stand and be enforced ‘so as
they be not contrary, varying, or repugnant to
the most wholesome and godly laws of this realm
now established for the true religion of God.’

There was again to be the full number of
thirteen brothers and thirteen sisters with their
ancient allowances. The master was yearly to
render an account of his administration, with a
full statement ofall lands and chattels, in writing,
to the mayor and two aldermen, and twicea year
to make a full survey of the edifices and
buildings belonging to the hospital and see to
their repair. Daily, or at least thrice a week,
the master was to say divine service, viz., morn-
ing and evening prayer from the Book of Com-
mon Prayer, and further instruct the brethren and
sisters in the catechism, and procure that the
brethren and sisters should each communicate at
least four times a year. He was not to alienate
any of the hospital property without the consent
of the brothers and sisters. He was not to
dismiss any of the brothers or sisters without the
consent of the mayor, and on the death of any
brother or sister he was to give notice to the
mayor within three days. Th master’s original
stipend of £10 was increased by £3 6s. 8d. a
year. Before Pentecost there was to be pro-
vided a muniment chest, to remain in the fittest
place in the hospital or in the safest place in the
town, with three keys of several fashions, one of
which the mayor was to have, the second the
master, and the third the senior chamberlain.
Steps were to be taken to increase the funds
so that more poor might benefit from the
hospital, and a new seal was to be made to be
called the common seal of the Hospital or
House of God ; it was to be used for leases, and
kept in a leather purse in the treasury chest.
All the brothers and sisters were to take oath to

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

observe the statutes of Michael de la Pole, not
being contrary to the newer statutes or the |.ws
of the realm. The master was at the same time
made to take an oath for the due administration
of the hospital. By 1624 the revenues had so
increased that the full number of thirteen men
and thirteen women was restored, the income
being then £130, as against something less than
£50 in Turner’s mastership.

During the siege of Hull in 1642 the build-
ings of the hospital and several houses in Myton
lanes were entirely destroyed by Sir John
Hotham, with a view to prevent the besiegers
from taking possession of them. The hospital
was rebuilt in 1644,” but was soon afterwards in
financial difficulties, a sum of £473 155. 7d. hav-
ing been expended in rebuilding it; and in 1651,
although there were only twelve poor people in it,
the house owed more than £100. A vigorous
reform was begun, and the revenues gradually
increased, so that in 1752 they amounted to
over £420, and in 1780 the then master was
able to rebuild the hospital with accommoda-
tion for forty-four brothers and sisters, there
being when Tickell wrote (1793) eighteen
poor men and twenty-five women living in
separate apartments, and each receiving 35. 6d.
weckly, besides fuel, &c. The revenuesin 1794
were estimated to reach £850, and in 1840
amounted to upwards of £1,300, and twenty-
eight poor men and twenty-nine poor women
were then housed in the hospital, which in
modern times has come to be spoken of as ‘ The
Charterhouse.’

Masters 4

Robert de Killam, 1384
Simon Burton, 1428
Robert Pullan, 1448
Henry Paycock, 1468
Thomas Wilson, 1508
John Garton, 1513
Thomas Sotheby, 1514
Robert Walter, 1515
Christopher Richardson, occurs 1527 18
William Man, 1535
Simon Hemsey, 1552
Laurence Allan, 1555
Thomas Turner, 1558
Griffith Briskin, 1583
Thomas Wincop, 1598
Andrew Marvell, 1624
William Styles, 1641
John Shaw, 1651
William Ainsworth, 1661
Richard Kitson, 1671

" Tickell, Hist. of Hull, 424. * Ibid. 741.

SWhite, Hist. Gaz. and Dir. of the E. and N.
Ridings (1840), 124,

“ Tickell, op. cit. 745.

'’Cler, Subs. 64, no. 303.

John Garnet (pro tem.), 1715
John Clarke, 1716
John Bourne, 1768

132-6. OTHER HOSPITALS, HULL

Greco’s Hosprrat.—This hospital was found-
ed in 1414 by John Gregg,” alderman and
merchant of Hull. He also founded two chan-
tries in Trinity Church, and endowed the
whole with houses, lands, and tenements in
the town. In 1445 William Saunderson, chap-
lain of Gregg’s Maison Dieu and chantry, en-
feoffed the Mayor and burgesses of Hull and
their successors, in trust, of the lands, &c., be-
longing to the hospital and chantries. Licence
having been obtained from the king, the
mayor and commonalty bound themselves to
maintain them, and to pay to the thirteen poor
folk in the hospital £3 os. 8d., on every Sunday
1s. 2d., for their maintenance, which they were
to receive at the altar of St. Lawrence in Trinity
Church. ‘Tickell states that in the hospital there
“lately hung two antient tables, in one of which
were placed rules and orders appointed by the
founder to be observed in this house by such poor
as should be admitted unto the same; in the
other, before the reformation, were drawn the
pictures of the founders, and of Christ, to whom
this hospital was dedicated, which in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth were effaced, together with
some orders in the first table which enjoin the
poor of this house to pray for the souls of certain
persons deceased, and new rules and orders drawn
up by the mayor and aldermen were written in
their place.’

Tickell professes to quote verbatim the rules
from the founders’ table, which begin, ‘Thys ys:
th’ ordynaunce and constitucione of John Gregg,
of Kingston-upon-Hull, merchant, and of dame
Jone his wife, founders and beginners of a
mayson dieu yn ye olde Kirk lane, of the said
town, ye which ys callyd ye masen dew of
Chryste.’

Each brother or sister was to be taken by
advice of the mayor and aldermen, and those poor
people who had been ‘of most worship’ in the
town, and had fallen into poverty, were to be
admitted before others. Every brother or sister
might leave at will. The founders willed that
every brother and sister should say daily at 6 in
the morning, and at 6 at even, fifteen pater-
nosters, fifteen Ave Marias, and three Credos, for
the founders’ and all Christian souls. If any
married they were to leave and take their goods.
All goods were to be in common, and the garden
‘common to alle the brothyrs and systers both in
herbs and dysporting both for ye pottes and ye

Tickell, op. cit. 756, whose account has been
followed.

312

RELIGIOUS

cuppes, and in dewe tyme yay to manour” and
garto set and sow the same garden by yair
best avyle for ye welefare of yem alle.” The
founders also willed that the ‘ prayer bell be
rongen at 6 atte clok atte morning lasting the
tyme of yair prayers,’ and at even the same, by a
brother or sister.

In 1564 the mayor and aldermen altered
various of the rules for the poor ‘ within Corpus
Christi (sic) maison dieu.’ The brothers and
sisters were to learn the belief, commandments,
and Lord’s prayer in English, and not to be given
to idolatry, or worship or keep images, or practise
witchcraft. ‘There was to be no evil living.
Those who were in health were to tend the
sick. And yearly two among the brethren and
sisters were to be chosen who should see to the
observance of the rules.

This hospital is still one of the town charities.
In Tickell’s time the poor were not so com-
fortably lodged as in the Charterhouse Hospital,
the building, as he remarks, being very ancient,
and the apartments small. The poor were not
then fed in common according to the intent of
the founder, but lived separately, and provided in
the best manner their allowance and industry
would admit for their needs,

The hospital was situated in Postern Gate, and
in 1840 ® housed twenty widows who received
“2s, each weekly.’ ®

RiptincHam’s Hosprrat. — According to
Tickell,” John Riplingham, D.D., whom
he terms ‘president of Beverley College,’ soon
after 1517 founded a hospital for twenty poor
people in Vicar Lane, and also a chantry
in Trinity Church, wherein two priests (the
last of whom were Laurence Allan and
William Parkins) *! were daily to pray for his
soul, his parents’ souls, and the souls of all
Christians. He endowed this chantry and the
hospital with the rents of eighteen tenements
and four gardens within the town, and lands, &c.,
elsewhere. Tickell says that the hospital was
standing in the beginning of the reign of
Charles I, but was destroyed during the Civil
war. John Riplingham, a son of William
Riplingham, merchant of Hull, died in 1518,
as rector of St. Martin’s Vintry, London.”

7 ie. ‘manure.’ White, Hist. Gaz. &c. 124.

*Dame Joan Thurescrosse of Hull bequeathed,
17 September 1523, ‘To Gregge’s Massendew xxs.’ ;
Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), v, 172.

® Tickell, op. cit. 146.

* William Parkyn was incumbent of the ‘Stipendiarie
or Salarie’ at St. Mary’s altar in St. Mary’s Church,
but that was of the foundation of one ‘Jeffrey
Thuriscrosse’ and in another church, Neither the
chantry alluded to by Tickell nor the hospital is
mentioned in the Chantry Certificates. Yorks. Chant.
Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 346.

* Seea note, Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), iii, 225, which
refers to Athenae Cantab. i, 20, for an account of him.

HOUSES

Trinity Matson Diev.—There was a
Maison Dieu at Beverley Gate which is re-
ferred to in the will of Dame Joan Thures-
crosse of Hull, 17 September 1523, where
she bequeathed ‘To the Trinitie Massendew at
Beverley gattes a matres, a coverlett,a paire of
blankettes, a paire of hardyn sheittes.’* It
may have been that which James de Kyngeston,
king’s clerk, built for thirteen poor infirm
persons, and which he obtained the king’s
licence in mortmain in 1344 to assign to John
le Couper, the master he had appointed of God’s
House, to provide a habitation for thirteen poor
men and women, broken by age, misfortune,
or toil, who could not gain their own liveli-

hood.*4

Trinity Housz Hosprrat.—The gild of
the Holy Trinity of Kingston-upon-Hull was
formed in 1369,” and in 1441-2 Henry VI
granted Letters Patent constituting the gild
a body corporate. In the king’s grant pro-
vision was made towards the building of an
almshouse, founded for thirteen persons, who by
misfortune of the sea shall happen to fall into
poverty, and a chapel annexed thereto.

On All Saints’ Day (1 November) 1457 certain
of the masters and owners of ships by advice of
the merchants and others established as part of
the gild of the Holy Trinity, in honour of the
Holy Trinity and our Lady, ‘an house of alms
within the said Kinzston-upon-Hull for mariners
that be impotent and of no power of goods, in
the said house to be sustained and charitably
relieved and continued of and with lowage and
stowage, that is to say, all profits in money that
shall hereafter grow or be taken of every ship of
the said port,’ &c.

The hospital thus founded in connexion with
the corporation of Trinity House, Hull, has been
so intimately connected with and managed by
that corporation that its history is part of the
history of Trinity House.

Sevsy’s Hosprrat.—This hospital seems to
have been founded by Richard de Ravenser,
Archdeacon of Lincoln, and Robert de Selby,
his brother, for twelve poor men, each of
whom was to receive one halfpenny a day.”
In 1392” lands in Lund were conveyed to
the Prior and convent of Guisborough for
its support and the maintenance of a chantry
for a canon regular in Trinity Church, Hull, at
that time a chapel in the parish of Hessle, the
church of which belonged to Guisborough.
Leland says that Selby’s Hospital stood on the
north side of the church.”

3 Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), v, 172.

* Cal. Pat. 1343-5, p. 239.

* 'Tickell, op. cit. 704.

3 313 40

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

137. THE HOSPITAL OF
ST. LEONARD, LOWCROSS

Most of what is known about this hospital is
contained in a series of some sixty deeds in the
Guisborough Chartulary.”® It would appear to
have been founded by a member of a family
which took its name from Hutton near Guis-
borough, as Richard son of Hugh de Hotona
confirmed to the lepers of Lowcross 2 acres in
Hutton, where the hospital had anciently stood ;°
and John ‘dominus de Hoton’ remitted to the
Prior and convent of Guisborough his right of
nominating a leper to the hospital.*!

From the charter, already mentioned, ot
Richard son of Hugh de Hotona it is evident
that the hospital originally was situated at
Hutton, but from other charters * in which it is
described as the hospital of St. Leonard ‘quod
est inter Hotonam (Hutton) et Bernaldby’
(Barnaby), it looks as if it had been moved, and
it was then known as the hospital of Lowcross,
which lies between Hutton and Barnaby.
Between 1218 and 1234 the neighbouring
hospital of St. Laurence at Upsall appears to
have been suppressed. At any rate, most of its
lands were then transferred to the hospital of
Lowcross,** and this possibly synchronizes with
the removal of the hospital to Lowcross.

A difficulty is presented by the identification
on the Ordnance Survey at Hutton, and not at
Lowcross, of a site marked ‘Lepers Hospital,’
and Graves writing of Hutton in 1808 says: ‘A
part of the buildings which stood in a solitary
situation, shut in by rising grounds overhung
with deep and solemn woods, has been converted
into a farm-house, with stables and other out-
ofhces, in which some mutilated arches of doors
and windows are still remaining.’ ** It is obvious
that he refers to the site marked on the Ordnance
Survey. Possibly this was the original site.

The hospital is called in two of the charters
the ‘ Hospital of the Sick Men of Bernaldby ’®
(Barnaby), a natural alternative to that of Low-
cross, as it is evident from a charter of Gregory
the son of Walter de Bernaldby that the hospital,
which had a cemetery attached to it, though in
Lowcross, stood on the confines of Barnaby.*®
Elsewhere it is called the ‘ Hospital of the Sick
persons of St. Leonard of the parish of St. Mary
of Guisborough.’ *” The inmates were of both

® Guisborough Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), i, 171-96. The
deeds are mostly anterior to c. 1250.

* Tbid. 171. *' Thid. 193.

* Ibid. 181, * Ibid. 190.

“ Graves, Hist. of Cleveland, 433.

*S Guisborough Chartul. (Surt. Soc.), i, 173, 184-5,

_* Ibid. 177, no. 345, in which land in Barnaby

given to the hospital of St. Leonard of Low-
cross is described as lying on the east of the hospital,
and other land by the cemetery on the west of the
hospital. * Ibid. 175.

sexes: ‘rratres et sorores, sani et leprosi, de
ecclesia et de domo S. Leonardi de Loucros,’ 8
as they style themselves in one case. The
hospital must have been fairly well endowed, from
the numerous gifts mentioned in the charters.
These included property in Barnaby, Hutton,
Lowcross, Kirkleatham, Upsall, Moorsholm, and
other neighbouring villages. There was a
church *®® as well as a cemetery at the hospital.
The hospital was governed by a master until it
was given to Guisborough Priory by William de
Bernaldeby,*® whose gift was confirmed by Peter
the son of Peter de Brus.*? It would seem that
the hospital had been taken over by the priory
before 1275, as in that year the jurors of the
wapentake said that the brewers and bakers of
Guisborough used to give alms of ale and bread
to the lepers of Lowcross at their pleasure, but
the Prior of Guisborough now compelled them
to pay 4d. every week when they baked or
brewed, and these alms he farmed out for 1 mark
or 20s. After the hospital became dependent
on Guisborough the almoner of the priory
became its custes or rector, and the hospital
wholly disappears from view.* It is last men-
tioned in 1329,‘4 but there is no reason to
suppose that it was suppressed before the Dis-
solution, though it seems to have been absorbed
in the priory.

138-140. THE MALTON HOSPITALS

The priory of Malton, instead of its canons
taking charge of nuns, had three hospitals for the
poor attached to it.

Tue Hosprrar oF St. Mary MacbaALeng,
Broucuton.—This one of the three hospitals
was founded by Eustace Fitz John, the founder
of the priory, at or about the same time as the
monastery.“© Henry Latimer gave a toft in
Broughton to provide firing for the poor in the
hospital. The office of custos appears to
have been in the king’s gift, at least it is so
stated in 1399, when the king appointed
Thomas Scawby chaplain.*”

WHEELGATE Hosprrat.—Another of these
hospitals was in Malton itself, in Wheelgate.*
The Cross Keys Inn stands on the site of the
hospital, and a crypt still remains.

%* Ibid. 195. * Ibid. 195, 187. “ Ibid. 190.
“ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi (2), 781.

“ Graham, St. Gilbert of Sempringham and the Git-
bertines, 37.

“ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi (2), 780.

“= Cott. MS. Claud. D. xi, fol. 242.

“ Pat. 22 Ric. II, m. 23.

“ Graham, op. cit. 213.

314

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Tue Hosprrat or St. NicHoras, Norron.
—The third of the hospitals under the govern-
ance of Malton Priory was situated on an island
in the Derwent on the Norton side of the river.

William de Flamville® gave the place at
Norton to the canons of the order of Sempring-
ham, to minister there to Christ’s poor who
sought for their daily food, so that as far as the
place allowed they might have daily hospitality
and refreshment. Roger de Flamville *' gave to
the Blessed Mary the Virgin, and St. Nicholas,
the church of St. Mary of Marton with its
appurtenances, for the hospital of the poor at the
head of the bridge of Norton. He also gave to
the hospital pasturage for 200 sheep in Marton,
with other gifts in Hutton, &c.

THE HOSPITAL OF JESUS,
MIDDLEHAM

141.

Nothing is known about this hospital beyond
the statement of Leland that there was at the
east end of Middleham a little hospital with a
chapel of Jesus.”

142, THE HOSPITAL OF MITTON

There appears to have been a hospital in
Mitton or Myton, outside Hull, at the time that
Michael de la Pole founded his priory of Carthusian
monks in 1379, as he granted to the monks, inter
alia, a messuage once part of the manor of Mitton,
and formerly known as ‘le Masendew.’** The
later history of this hospital will be found in the
account of the Charterhouse Hospital, Hull.

143. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JAMES
NEAR NORTHALLERTON

The foundation of this hospital has been
usually assigned to Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of
Durham (1154-95),*4 but it seems certain from
an ordinance made in respect to it in 1244 that
the original founder was Philip de Poitou,
Bishop of Durham 1197-1208, for whose soul
the chaplains were bound to pray.

Three documents relating to the hospital have
been printed by Canon Raine. One only, the
ordinance of 1244, is dated, but an approximate

* Graham, op. cit. 37.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 972, no. ix.

*' Tbid. no. x.

” Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 781, quoting Leland,
Itin. v, 117.

*° Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 21.

“ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 780; Ingledew, Hist.
of Northallerton, 251.

* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 85.
* Archbp. Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 177-81.

date of c. 1230 can be assigned to another, and
the third seems to be intermediate between them.

The first is a revocation by Robert, vicar of
Allerton, of certain concessions he had made to
the hospital. His statement is that when very
ill, and mentally incompetent, he was cajoled by
the Bishop of Durham and certain of his officials
to make concessions to the hospital. He had
renounced all ecclesiastical rights of the vicar,
and allowed the hospital to have a free chapel,
with chaplains appointed without his or his suc-
cessors’ consent, to minister in the chapel, from
whom the hospital inmates could receive the
sacraments. ‘The hospital was to have its own
cemetery, wherein not merely the inmates might
be buried, but any /iberi homines who in their
lifetime had chosen it as their burial place, with-
out dues being paid to the parish church, saving
only the rights of the mother churches of which
they were parishioners. He had also agreed that
the offerings made on the feast of St. Nicholas in
the chapel should belong to the hospital, and
had only reserved to himself and his successors
the right to demand the offerings made in the
chapel on other occasions. Further, he had
given up certain tithes, and all without the con-
sent of his superiors, the Prior and chapter of
Durham. Being, however, by the grace of God,
restored to health, and recognizing the injury he
had done to the churches of Durham and North-
allerton and to his successors, and realizing that
it was beyond his power to have made such
grants, as far as in him lay he repudiated them.

The second document is an award by the
chapter of York, and records that Robert (who,
probably by a clerical error, is spoken of as
‘rector’ of Allerton) had complained of Reynold,
warden of the hospital, withholding tithes and
offerings due to the parish church of Allerton,
and particularly that the warden had cast a corpse
down at the cemetery gates, without paying the
dues which the church ought to receive for those
who died in the hospital. On account of this
the parish priest had excommunicated the warden,
and Robert the rector claimed 20 marks of
silver for the loss he had sustained. The warden
let the case go by default, and the chapter upheld
the excommunication, ordered the warden to pay
the 20 marks due and 100s. in addition as costs.
It looks as if the dispute had arisen on the
revocation of the grants that had been made.
Soon afterwards Reynold the warden must have
vacated his office, for in 1237 Archbishop Gray
granted to Andrew the chaplain custody and
administration of all the goods belonging to the
house of the hospital of Allerton, as well in
spiritualities as in temporalities.

*” Master William de Haya, a witness, was also a
witness to ‘le Convenit’ between Bishop Poore and
the Prior and convent of Durham in 1229 ; Feodarium
Prioratus Dunelmensis, vi, fol. 217.

315

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The third of the documents is the formal
ordination of the hospital by Nicholas Farn-
ham, Bishop of Durham, dated Northallerton,
27 October 1244. In this ordination he speaks
of his predecessor Philip as the founder, and
states that Philip and other Bishops of Durham
had bestowed ecclesiastical and secular gifts on
the hospital,®* but that owing to their deaths its
ordination had been delayed. He provided that
the hospital was to have a resident ‘procurator,’
known as warden (custos). He was to havea
servant, three horses, and two attendants. There
were to be two ‘honest’ chaplains with two
clerks, a baker and brewer with a servant, also
a cook with a servant, and five brothers, clerks
or laymen, in sound health (san), who were to
have the habit and observe the rule of the brothers
of Kepier. One was to be porter and procurator
of the poor received each nizht, another butler
and keeper of the store, a third larderer and
gardener, the fourth granger, and the fifth in
charge of the infirm persons in bed. There were
also to be three sisters, with the habit and rule
of sisters ; two were to tend the infirm and see
to the needs of the house. Thirteen sick people
were to be maintained in small beds (/ectu/is),
and humanely cared for till convalescent, or till
death overtook them. When a death occurred,
the vacancy was to be filled without delay.
Nothing is said as to the sex of the infirm.
Every night thirteen other poor folk were to be
received at the hospital, and were to have half
a loaf apiece with drink. If any was too feeble
to go away again, such person was to be provided
for at the hospice at the gate. The bread given
to the infirm and to the poor folk at the gate
was to be of such wight that a quarter of corn
made ten score loaves. When the hospital became
richer the infirm and poor travellers were to
benefit. Finally, power was reserved to the
Bishops of Durham to visit the hospital and cor-
rect abuses. Nothing is known about the
hospital for more than a century. On 13 July
1379 Archbishop Alexander Nevill held a
visitation of the hospital in the chapel, by his
commissaries. The warden, John de Appelby,
appeared by his proctor George de Copman-
thorpe. He had been warden for a year
and more, and all that he had received for his
own use was but 2;., as he had spent all he
received in the erection of new buildings and the
repair of the old ones, both those of the hospital
itself and those of its tenants, and of the mills,
for all the buildings (domus), for the most part,
both of the hospital and outside were, at his

“Bishop Philip granted certain mills to the
hospital ; Turner and Coxe, Cal Bodl. Chart. 601.

° Pope Clement VI, 1342, issued a mandate to the
Archbishop of York to cause Margaret de Thorpe alas
Horner, to be received as sister in the Poor Hospital
of Northallerton ; Cai. of Papal Letters, iii, 86.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Alex. Nevill, fol. 93,

becoming warden, almost ruinous owing to the
neglect of his predecessors. He had erected
seven new buildings and had covered with
shingles (cum tabulis dictis Chingi/l) a notable por-
tion of the Great House. Being admonished,
he exhibited a copy of a certain ordinance, which
said that there should be two priests in the
hospital, and he admitted that there was only
one; also that there should be three sisters,
whereas there was but one sister professed.
However there was a second, Constance de Fen-
cotes, dwelling there in secular costume with the
warden, and he agreed that she should be professed,
There ought to be five brothers, clerks or laymen,
working in different offices, but there were none.
There ought to be thirteen infirm in beds, main-
tained out of the funds of the hospital, and it
appeared that there were only three. Being
asked why there were not more priests, brothers,
sisters, and infirm, the warden’s proctor replied
that the hospital buildings, more particularly that
called the Frerehall, needed so much repair that
£100 would scarcely suffice for this, and more-
over, the hospital owed many outside debts, but
the warden intended to restore the ancient and
full number, and did not mean to receive him-
self any of the funds until the repairs were
finished and the ancient staff restored,

Asked as to the outside debts, he replied that
Alice de Dighton had 5 marks annually by a
deed under the common seal of the hospital in
the time of John de Stokys, that the wife of
Richard Bricknall had 50s., that Alice de Bug-
thorp had a corrody in the hospital, and received
the share of a sister, that John Perrotson and
John Whithone both had corrodies granted by
the same.

The revenues of the hospital consisted, in the
first place, of two churches, which averaged yearly
£40, but in the current year had scarcely
reached £30. There were rents and revenues
amounting, by estimation, to 28 marks; and 3
carucates of land and meadow adjacent belonging
to the hospital which constituted the whole
hospital property.

Joan, sister of the hospital, was examined,
and said they used to receive their liveries
(/berationes) in their own chambers, but that now
they ate together in the hall. During the thirty
years she had been in the hospital so much care
had not been observed in its government as now,
and many of the parishioners said the same.
Finally, the commissaries decreed that for the main-
tenance of divine service in the ensuing year the
warden should find another chaplain, and that
he should increase the number of paupers as soon
as he conveniently could, and when the repairs
were finished he should maintain the full number
of chaplains, brothers, sisters, and infirm, accord-
ing to the ordinance, unless the revenues were
so insufficient that he might be reasonably
excused,

316

RELIGIOUS

On 15 July 1350 Archbishop Zouch wrote
to the guardian of the spirituality of Allerton,
concerning the complaint of Brother William
Newark, who is described as a conversus of the
hospital, that Robert de Dyghton the warden
had ejected him (who had been long there) from
the hospital without cause.

In 1397 Boniface IX confirmed to John
Hyldyard for life the office of warden of the
hospital of Allerton, to which he had been
appointed on 17 June 1396 by Bishop Skirlaw.
The appointment for life was in recognition of
the heavy expense with which he had raised the
hospital from its ruin and desolation. The
hospital, however, was not, on account of this life
appointment, to be reckoned an ecclesiastical
benefice, and on its voidance was to revert to
its original status. In 1402 John Hyldyard
was still warden,® and in a mandate to confer
upon him the prebend of Twyford, in Lon-
don, it is stated that he was only in minor
orders, and a dispensation was then given him,
not to have to receive holy orders for five
years.

In 1411 John XXIII granted to Thomas
Toueton, that having been appointed warden by
Bishop Langley, in succession to John Newton,
he should not, during his life, be removed from
office without reasonable cause, although the
custom was that the warden, who was a secular
clerk, might be removed at the sole pleasure of
the Bishop of Durham. There seems some
reason to think that when the small nunnery of
Foukeholm died from lack of means, some of its
property passed to the hospital.®

In the Valor Ecclesiasticus © the gross annual
revenue was £58 10s. 10d., and the establish-
ment maintained at that time the warden, two
chaplains, four lay brothers, two sisters, and six
infirm. On 19 May 1540 the hospital was
surrendered by Richard Morysine, the master or
warden, and his confraters in their chapter-house.
The site was granted, 32 Henry VIII, to the
late warden, and afterwards became part of the
endowment of Christ Church, Oxford.” It is
now represented by a farm-house called Spital
about a mile south of Northallerton.

Masrers

Richard, occurs 1246-51 ®
Reynold, occurs c. 1240 ©

* York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 279.
” Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 67.

* Ibid. 469.

* Ibid. vi, 297.

* See account of Foukeholm, supra.

* Op. cit. (Rec. Com.), v, 85.
Ingledew, Hist. of Northallerton, 258.
Baildon, op. cit. i, 150.

HOUSES

Robert de Brumpton, occurs before 1311,”
occurs 13357

John de Ashby, occurs 1339, 13437

Adam de Pikeryng, occurs 1345,” 1347“

Robert de Dyghton, occurs 1350 7°

Nicholas del Hill, occurs 1355 7

Robert de Dyghton, occurs 13607

John de Stokys, before 1379 78

John de Appelby, occurs c. 1378, 13797

John Hyldyard, occurs 1396, 1402 ®

John Newton, resigned c. 1411 8

Thomas Toueton, occurs 1411 8

Richard Corston, occurs 1432

Robert Symson, occurs 1489,°" 1492 %

John Conyers, occurs 1526 ®

Richard Morysine, occurs 1540 ®

The 15th-century seal is a vesica, 24 in.
by 1in., with a representation of St. James and
the legend :—

s’;COMUNE HOSPITALIS SCI IACOBI DE ALUERTONE

144. THE MAISON DIEU, NORTH-
ALLERTON

The Maison Dieu was founded in the 15th
century by Richard Moore, draper, of North-
allerton, who gave certain lands and tenements
in Northallerton and elsewhere to endowa chantry
in the church and maintain a Maison Dieu in
that town, in which thirteen poor persons of
either sex were to reside. They were to have
20s, a year to buy coal with, and were to find
two beds in the Maison Dieu for poor travellers,

” Cal. Pat. 1313-17, p. 337. He was appointed
for life by Bishop Anthony [Bek] who died in 1311.
The king intruded Walter de Assherugge in 1315,
but Brumpton proved his own claim to the office.

” Baildon, op. cit. i, 150.

” Tbid.

York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 279.

™ Baildon, op. cit. i, 150.

York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 279.

76 Assize R. 1130, m. 8.

"Ibid. 1131, m. 14. Possibly Nicholas del Hill
was an intruder, as we here find Dyghton bringing an
action of novel disseisin against Nicholas del Hill,
clerk, and others.

78 York Archiepis. Reg. Alex. Nevill, fol. 93.

Ibid.

8 Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 67, 469.

§! Tbid. vi, 297.

* Ibid.

8 Baildon, op. cit. i, 150.

8a Wills and Inventories (Surt. Soc.), 100.

8 Turner and Coxe, Cal. Bod/. Chart. 1601.

* Subs. R. bdle. 63, no. 303; Valor Eccl. (Rec.
Com.), v, 295.

8° Surrendered the house; L. and P. Hen. VIII,
xv, 691.

7 Cat. of Seal, B.M. 3735, lxxiv, 89.

otf

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

who were to lodge there one night and no
longer. The thirteen inmates were daily,
morning and evening, at 6 o’clock (ad horam
sextam) to say fifteen Paternosters and as many
Ave Marias, with three creeds, in honour of the
passion of our Lord. They were also to pray
for the souls of the founders and others.*

On 1 October 1476 his feoffees conveyed the
lands and tenements to Sir James Strangways, kt.,
and his son Richard that they might nominate
the chaplain and appoint the poor people to the
Maison Dieu.®? In 1529 Sir James Strangways,
kt., the great-great-grandson of this Sir James,
conveyed to Robert Conyers and others the
Maison Dieu and lands, reserving the appoint-
ment of the bedesmen and chaplain.”

In the chantry certificates *! the chantry is
described as being at the altar of the Trinity
in Northallerton Church,

of the foundacion of Richard More of Northalver-
ton, draper, and James Strangwaies, knight ; and also
one beidhouse of xiij poore people called the Masen-
dewe, in the same towne, for the sustentacion wherof
Sir James Strangewaies, knight, decessed, in his lyffe
tyme did enfeoffe certen persons of and in certen
landes and ten., to th’entente the incumbent shuld
have yerly for his stipende cs., and the said poore
people xxvjs. viijd. of the issuez and profectes of the
said landes. To the which chargez the landes and
hereditamentes of the said Sir James was, befor that
tyme, charged as by one dede, indented, tripartited,
and one dede of feoffment therunto annexed, dated
ultimo die Marcii anno [1529] more at larg and
planlye apperyth. And nowe William, lord Dacre,
and Sir Charles Brandon, knight, haith entred in to
all the said landes about ij yeres past, and convertyth
the same to ther own usez withoute fyndyng the said
priste or paing any thinge to the saide poore people.

The Maison Dieu survived the spoliation of
Lord Dacre and Sir Charles Brandon, and in a
much diminished state still exists. © When
Ingledew wrote it was a hospital for poor
widows,*? whose numbers had then (1858) been
reduced to four, and its property then consisted
of three closes in Northallerton and Romanby
containing 12a. and another close in North-
allerton of rather more than 3a. in area. The
hospital was then situated on the east side of the
High Street near the church, the almswomen
being appointed by the select vestry as vacan-
cies occurred from poor widows belonging to
Northallerton. Each widow then received £8
a year by quarterly payments and a ton “of
coal. In 188g the four widows were paid 35.

weekly.

: eas Hist. and Antig. of Northallerton, 268-9.
* Tbid.

* Tbid. 267.

*' Dorks. Chant. Surv, (Surt. Soc.), i, 123.

“In 1545 J. Cape of Welbury left ‘to xiij widows
of the Masyndewe of Alverton xiijd’ ; York Reg. of
Wills, xiii, fol. 604.

145. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. NICHO-
LAS, PICKERING

In 1325 % Edward II informed the brethren
and sisters of the hospital of St. Nicholas of
Pickering that he had conferred the custody of
the hospital then vacant on Roger de Barneby,
the same pertaining to the king’s patronage. His
predecessor may have been Robert, chaplain of
the hospital of St. Nicholas, Pickering, who
occurs 1322.8

The hospital, like that of Skipton, was prob-
ably connected with the chapel in the castle,
which at Pickering is under the invocation of
St. Nicholas.

146. KNOLLES ALMSHOUSE,
PONTEFRACT

The ordination of the house by Archbishop
Alexander Nevill, dated 4 October 1385,” re-
cords that Robert Knolles, kt. and citizen of
London, and Constance his wife had constituted
the domus collegiata on land acquired of Thomas
Shirwynd in Pontefract, in honour of the Holy
Trinity and the Blessed Virgin Mary, which
college or chantry was to be commonly called
‘Knolles Almeshous.” There were to be in it
certain chaplains, one of whom was to be
master or custos, two clerks, thirteen pauperes
debiles, the latter being especially such as misfortune
had overtaken, and also two servants to attend
tothe poor. The master was to receive 20 marks
a year, each chaplain 10 marks, and each clerk
5 marks, withall necessaries. Besides £34 45. 34d.
&c., for the maintenance of the poor, each was
to receive on the feasts of the Holy Trinity,
Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, All Saints, and the
five days of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 2d. extra.
John Stedeman [a/ias Neuthorp] was appointed
first master, and the supervision of the establish-
ment was committed, after the founders’ deaths,
to the Prior of Nostell.

The masters were, on each festival and feast
of nine lections, to say matins, mass, vespers, and
compline by note, and every Saturday solemn
mass of St. Mary was to be said by note, at the
altar of the Blessed Mary. On other ferias,
immediately after mass, the master and chap-
lains were among them to say one private
mass of St. Mary and another of requiem for the
departed. Every day after compline they were
to say solemnly before the image of the glorious
Virgin in the foresaid chapel, the Salve Regina,
oranother anthem of the same, according to the
season and as the order of the church required,
with the psalm De Profundis, recommending, in
especial, the founders among the departed, or,
while they lived, saying for them the collect

Pat. 19 Edw. II, m. 26.
8 Assize R. 1117, m. 10.
“York Archiepis. Reg. A. Nevill, fol. 97

318

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Dus, qui caritatis, or ‘Omnipotens sempiterne
qui vivorum simul et mortuorum.’

They were also to say daily, without note, in
common in the quire of the chapel of the house,
the seven penitential psalms, and fifteen psalms
with the litany, in quire or not, for the good
estate of the founders. After the death of the
founders the obit of each was to be kept yearly
and their exequies and masses said solemnly, with
note and principal vestments. The master,
chaplains, clerks, poor persons, and servants on
these obit days were each to receive 6s. 8d. in
money in the name of a pittance. Each poor
person at the beginning of every ordinary day
was to say the Paternoster thrice in honour of
the Holy Trinity.

The master was to be nominated to the arch-
bishop by the Prior of St. Oswald’s within
fifteen days of each vacancy for institution, or
failing this the archbishop was to collate pro hac
vice. The master was to appoint the chaplains
within fifteen days, or be fined 6s. 8d. The
chaplains were to dine in the hall, and pay 60s.
for food and drink. A chest was to be provided
with two keys for the jewels and valuables of
the house, one key to be kept by the Prior of St.
Oswald’s, the other by the master. The master
was to have a seal of office appointed for him,
with a rose and the image of the Holy Trinity
engraved in the seal, and this seal was to be
kept in the chest. No leases were to be made
and sealed by the prior and master for longer
periods than fifty years, and corrodies were not
to be granted.

The master and chaplains were each to have
vestitum talarem honestum, &c., and when they
attended the accustomed divine hours in the
quire were to have a white almuce, on which, in
memory of the founders, was to be a red rose
containing on it the image of the Holy Trinity.
On the death of the founders the master was to
take a corporal oath on the gospels before the
Prior of St. Oswald to render a faithful account
yearly to the prior. He was to hold no other
preferment, but was to reside continually, except
for reasonable causes approved by the prior, who
was to supervise the house and correct abuses,
and was himself to examine the accounts annually,
and receive 40s. from the master.

The lands in London, with which the house

was to be endowed on the deaths of the founders,
were to be in charge of the Mayor of London,
who also was to receive 405. a year, as well as
the collectors of the rents.
- According to Leland, Sir Robert Knolles
originally contemplated founding the house in
Norfolk, but was persuaded by his wife to place
it in Pontefract, where she was born.

Further ordinances as to the internal manage-
ment of the house were confirmed by Arch-
bishop Scrope at Cawood on 5 October 1404."

* York Archiepis. Reg. Scrope, fol. 45.

In 1535 °° Thomas Hutchon was still master,
receiving £13 6s. 8d. as his stipend, and the six
confratres each received £6 135. 4d.

There were six poor men each receiving
545. 8d., and six poor women each receiving
535. 44., and also three women servants re-
ceiving 65s. 4d. each. There was also Robert
Harrison, a layman, who held the office of
sacrist and was paid 66s. 8d.

In the chantry certificates * it is reported
that the ‘hole necessitie’ of the house was
‘the maintenance of hospitalitie, Goddes service
daly, and the releif of pore people, and the
kepynge of the forsayde xiiij poore folkes iij
servantes and iij children,’ which was all duly
observed. The ‘goods’ of the house were
valued at £53 6s. 5d. and the plateat £24 125. 9d.
Thomas Hewet was then master.

In 1563 Queen Elizabeth continued the
almshouse section of the foundation, in which
were maintained fifteen aged people, whereof
two were servants to the rest, each of whom was
to receive £2 135. 4d. yearly, and the mayor
and chief burgesses of Pontefract were to place
aged, impotent, and needy fit persons in the
almshouse.®

Later benefactions have been made to the
hospital, which is still in existence. In 1838
the hospital consisted of one large common
room, and sixteen sleeping-rooms for seven men
and nine women. ‘Two of the latter were con-
sidered as servants to the almspeople. All the
inmates were appointed by the corporation
according to the grant of Queen Elizabeth. The
overseers of the poor received all the revenues,
giving each inmate 2s. 6d. a week and a supply
of coals yearly.

Masters

John Stedeman,™ alias de Neuthorp, 1385,"
resigned 1410?

°° Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 68.

” Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), il, 327.

% Boothroyd, Hist. of Pontefract, 390.

* White, Hist. Gaz. and Dir. of the W. R. of Yorks.
1838, li, 281. The hospitals and almshouses of
Pontefract have been amalgamated under a scheme of
the Charity Commissioners, and are now under one
body of trustees. The scheme provided that the
occupants of the houses were to have 6s. a week,
or married couples 1os., but at present the funds
only permit payment of $s. and gs. respectively.
Some of the houses, e.g. St. Nicholas’s Hospital, are
let, some at nominal rents to deserving poor, and
others at rack rents. When there is a vacancy of a
house at a nominal rent, or a pension, the trustees
invite applications, it being a sine gua non that the
applicant should never have received parochial relief.
This combination includes certain charities founded
after the Reformation, as well as the mediaeval hos-
pitals, &c.—From information received from Mr. J.
Eyre Poppleton, solicitor, Pontefract.

109 York Archiepis. Reg. Alex. Nevill, fol. 97.

‘Ibid. Bowett, fol. 94. * Thid.

$#9

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

John de Stretton, succeeded 1410,3 died 1418 4
Alex. Rawden, succeeded 1415,° died 1419 ®
John Cudworth, succeeded 1419,’ occurs

1447”

John Latham, succeeded 1447,° resigned
1462°
James Clapeham, succeeded 1462,'° died

1494)

Robert Cooke, succeeded 1494,” died 1513

Thomas Baghill, succeeded 1513," died
152418

Thomas Huchon, bachelor of decrees, occurs
1533”

Thomas Hewet, occurs 1546”

147. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. NICHO-
LAS, PONTEFRACT

This hospital, according to Leland, existed
before the Conquest,’® but by whom it was
founded does not appear. Robert de Lacy, in
the foundation charter of St. John’s Priory at
Pontefract, tempore William Rufus, granted to
the Cluniac monks the full custody of the hos-
pital of St. Nicholas, where they had previously
lived, for the use of the poor.® Henry de Lacy,
the younger son of Robert, in 1159” renewed
his father’s gift of the hospital, and granted yearly,
forthe provision and clothing of the monk who
had charge of the hospital, a mark of silver, 12
hoops *! of corn, and 24 of oats, on the feast of
St. Martin. The gift of the hospital of St.
Nicholas to the priory of Pontefract was con-
firmed by Pope Celestine.”

On 7 June 1410 Henry IV granted to
Thomas Toueton, master of the hospital of
St. Nicholas of Pontefract, licence to grant the
manor of Methley, co. York, to Robert Walton
(sc) in exchange for the advowsons of the

* York Archiepis. Reg. Bowett, fol. 94.

* Ibid. fol. 1224, ® Ibid.

° Ibid. fol. 134. ” Ibid.

Cal. Pat. 1446-52, p. 17.

*York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 411.

* Ibid. Geo. Nevill, fol 15. Thid.

"Test, Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), iv, 93.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 804.

“Ibid. Bainbridge, fol. 414.

“Ibid.

Thid. Wolsey, fol. 75.

bid. Lee, fol. 4.

" Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 326.

* Leland, [tin. i, 43.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. v, 120.

® Ibid. 121.

" Thid. 122. See Halliwell, Dict. of Archaic and
Provincial Words, i, 458. The word seems to be
still in use, but with the varying meanings of 4, 2, or
1 peck of corn.

* Whether Celestine II (26 Sept. 1143 to 8 Mar.
1144) or Celestine III (30 Mar. 1191 to 8 Jan. 1198)

is not clear.

churches of Gosberton, co. Lincoln, and Wath,
co. York.*> On 11 November 1411 Pope
John XXIII confirmed the appropriation to the
hospital of the parish church of Wath by Arch-
bishop Bowett, the value not exceeding go marks,
and that of the hospital not exceeding 120 marks,
The archbishop’s letters (7 August 1410) to the
master stated that Robert Wartirton (sic), donsel,
had given to the hospital his patronage of the
churches of Wath and Goboerkirk (sc). The
archbishop (the chapter assenting) appropriated
to the master and his successors the church of
Wath, an annual compensation of 205. to be paid
to the archbishop, and 6s. 8d. to the dean and
chapter. ‘The master might take possession of
the church, already void by the free resignation
of Thomas Toueton. There was to be a per-
petual vicar, presented by the master to the arch-
bishop for institution.

In 1438 Henry VI gave the hospital and all its
estates, value £97 135. 10d., to the priory of
Nostell, the canons paying to the king and his
successors, Dukes of Lancaster, 20 marks a year.
The canons of Nostell maintained a chaplain and
thirteen poor folk in the hospital till the Disso-
lution.” At the date of the chantry surveys
there were only ‘ix poore people, beadmen, of
the nominacion of the late desolved monastery of
Saynt Oswaldes,’ but in a return of pensions in
the West Riding, 16 November 1552, it is stated
that fourteen men and women of the hospital of
St. Nicholas of Pontefract received pensions.
This included the master, Henry Hebylthwaite,
who received £5 ; two others £2, and the
rest 285. 6d. The return states ‘Thes persons
be called eremettes and be pore and aged people,
and placyd in a howse called Seynt Nicoyles
Hospytell, and when any of them dyeth another
ys placyd in the dedes roome ; and ys very con-
venyent to be contynuyd as well for the helpe
of the pore and agyd people of the towne of
Pontefrett, wher the same standyth, as for
others. The pencions was payd furth of the
tenementes of the late monasterye of Saynt
Oswaldes.’ 2”

The purposes of the hospital were afterwards
much perverted, and the corporation endeavoured
to obtain powers for its better government, which
resulted in a clause in a charter of James I in
1605, vesting the hospital in the corporation.”
Various benefactions to and regulations concern-
ing the hospital have been made in post-Refor-
mation times, and it still exists as one of the
charities of the town.

* Duchy of Lanc. Misc. Bks. v (2), 52d.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, vi, 288.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 781 3 cf. Boothroyd,
ae Pontefract, 379 ; York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp,
ol. 23.

** Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 325.

” Ibid. 326 n.

* Boothroyd, Hist. of Pontefract, 380.

320

RELIGIOUS

Masters

Robert de Wodehouse, occurs 1327-8 *

Mag" Ludovicus, custos, occurs 1399*°

Thomas Toueton,®! occurs 7 June 1410,"
and 11 Nov. 1411 *

William Bothe, appointed 11 May 1435,%4
mentioned 1441 *°

Henry Hebylthwaite, occurs 1548 ** and
155297

OTHER HOSPITALS,
PONTEFRACT

Tue Hosprrat oF St. Mary MacpbALene.
—Boothroyd states that this hospital was
founded in 1286 by Henry de Lacy as a lazar
house, and suggests that the hospital called
Frank’s Hospital, one of the existing charities of
the town, is either this lazar house under a new
name, or was built upon the site of it.*°

Archbishop Romanus granted an indulgence
to those who contributed to the relief of the
lepers of the hospital of St. Mary Magdalene
‘juxta Pontemfractum ’; this expression indi-
cating that, as was usual, the hospital was situated
just outside the town.”

148-150.

Tue Hosprrat or St. Mary THE VirGIn.
—Edward III on 1 December 1334 granted
licence to William le Tabourere to found a
hospital in a messuage in Pontefract, and an
oratory to the honour of God and the glorious
Virgin Mary, and to construct other buildings
for a chaplain and eight poor persons, the
chaplain to perform divine service daily in the
oratory. The king also granted licence to
Robert de la More, William le Coupere, and
Thomas de la Sale to give certain rents in Pon-
tefract to the hospital, as well as to Adam de
Ernys to give 12 acres of land in Darthinghtone

(Darrington).

* De Banco R. East. 2 Edw. III, m. 97d.; Cai.
of Papal Letters, ii, 273.

* <«Nuper fisicus carissimi avuncul: Regis, Johannis
nuper ducis Lancastrie, defuncti’ ; Pat. 22 Ric. II,
mM. 15.

* Also in 1411 Warden of St. James’s Hospital,
Northallerton (Ca/. of Papal Letters, vi, 297).

* Duchy of Lanc. Misc. Bks. v (2), 52 d.

% Cal. of Papal Letters, vi, 288.

* Boothroyd, op. cit. 380. In Mon. Notes (Bail-
don), i, 172, the date of his appointment is given as
1427, on the authority of the late Mr. Richard
‘Holmes.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 23.

* Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 325.

7 Thid. 326n.

* Boothroyd, op. cit. 382.

® York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 7.

“Pat. 8 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 9, quoted Dugdale,
Mon. Angi. vi, 703. See also Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt.
Soc.), ii, 326, where 1314 is a misprint for 1334.

HOUSES

Tue Hosprrar or St. Micnazz, Founsnape.
—Very little is known about this hospital. *
Mr. Richard Holmes, however, established two
important facts in regard to it, viz., that it- was
situated within the territory of the town of
Pontefract, and that it was a hospital belonging
to the Lazarites, whose head establishment in
England was the hospital of Burton Lazars in
Leicestershire, which at one time possessed the
advowson of the church of Castleford, adjoining
Pontefract. These facts are established by
a charter of William de Karnesal in 1220, con-
veying to the Cluniac monks of St. John Ponte-
fract 64 acres of land in Pontefract, ‘ propin-
quiores terrae Lazarorum de Fulsnap versus suth.’
Another document, discovered by Mr. Holmes,
is a quitclaim dated 1235, between Stephen,
prior, and the convent of Pontefract and the
master and brethren of Burton Lazars, that the
hospital should not pay tithes to the convent.
By means of these and other references Mr.
Holmes was able to determine the actual site of
the hospital of St. Michael Foulsnape, which is
shown on a plan attached to his paper. The
hospital was evidently subject to the mother
house at Burton Lazars ** as a cell of that order,
but no reference can be found to it in the
chartulary of Burton Lazars.

151. RERECROSS HOSPITAL, OR THE
SPITAL ON STAINMOOR

This hospital was evidently intended as a
shelter or ‘hospice’ for travellers across the wild
moorland track leading from Yorkshire to West-
morland. It derived the name of Rerecross from
a boundary stone, the pre-Norman stump of
which still remains, and which, according to the
‘Scala cronica’ (1280), was fixed by King Ed-
ward (died 946) as the boundary between Eng-
land and Scottish Cumberland.** It is there
called the ‘Reir Croiz de Staynmore,’ and the
hospital, being near, was occasionally called
‘Rerecross hospital,’ but more commonly the
¢Spital on Stainmoor.’

‘John Bule describes himself as ‘of the hos-
pytall of St. Mychaell arche angell Pountfrett’ ; Tesz.
Edor. (Surt. Soc.), iv, 93 n.

” Yorks. Arch. Fourn. x, 543-53. The information
in this account is wholly derived from Mr. Holmes’s
paper. To Mr. Holmes’s reference of identifica-
tion may be added a bequest in the will of John
Porter of Pontefract (12 April 1475), who left to the
gild of Corpus Christi of Pontefract an acre of land
in Pontefract in Spicer Close ‘juxta Foulsnape’ ;
York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 1264.

* The quitclaim alluded to indicates this.

“Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xix, 385. From the same
source it appears that the Bishop of Glasgow claimed
in 1258 ‘Rer Cros in Staynmor’ as the limit of his
diocese.

3 aor 41

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Ralph de Multon gave the hospital in or
before 1171 to the nuns of Marrick,**and agree-
ably to the foundation of Conan, Earl of Rich-
mond, the nuns of Marrick paid the chaplain of
the hospital the annual stipend of £4 135. 4d.*°
Ralph and the prioress subsequently acknow-
ledged that the hospital was within the parish of
Bowes and agreed to pay over the tithes and the
offerings in the chapel of the hospital to the
hospital of St. Peter at York.* The charters
the nuns of Marrick possessed relating to the
hospital are unfortunately missing from the gene-
ral series,*” so that the history of the hospital, as
such, is a complete blank.

In the valuation of Marrick Priory (1539-40),
certain lands and tenements called the Hospital,
or ‘Spyttal de Staynemore,’ with fields, pastures,
commons, and meadows belonging to it, are
valued at £2 13s. 4d. yearly, while in the Valor
Ecclestasticus the hospital was valued together
with the site of the priory and its demesne lands.*®
In the reprises was a fee-farm rent of 26s. 8d.
paid to the crown for the ‘Spytell super
Staynmore.’

The hospital was on the confines of the three
counties of York, Durham, and Westmorland,
and it is described as within each of these in dif-
ferent records, but the site is clearly within the
county of York. Ina record dated 18 December
7 Edward VI," a hospital or tenement called
le Spittell super Staynemoore, leased to John
Vdall, is thus noted : ‘the premyses doo lye
w'® in vij or viij myles of the lordeshipp of
Barnecastell, and as I am enformed within the
kinges majestes forrest of Tesdale, and hathe
good Inclosure and great Common thereto be-
longing. Also the premyses were always in the
occupacione of the prioresse and covent of the
sayde late noonerye [Marrick] and never leased
before the dissolucion thereof,’ &c.!

In a survey of woods (8 December 1553),
within the county of Durham, under ‘Parcella
nuper monasterii de Marike,’ is the following
memorandum: ‘There is a messuage called
the spittle of Staynmore in the tenure of John
Vdall, esquier, parcell of the lait monasterye of
Marrike wherupon growythe no kynde of
woodes.’ *? Marrick was granted in 1545-6 to
John Uvedale, and in the grant is included ¢ the
spyttelhouse de Stanemore in Stanemore in
comitatu nostro Westmorland.’ 8

_ © Burton, Mom, Ebor. 271 ; Dugdale, Mon. Angi.
iv, 244.

“ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 244.

“= Cott. MS. Nero D. iii, fol. 22.

“ Coll. Topog. et Gen. (1838), v, 1 17.

“ Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 247.

* P.R.O. Particulars for Grants, Edw. VI, no. 1453.

** Tbid. ‘

* Pat. 37 Hen. VIII, pt. xi, m. 30.

152. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. NICHO-
LAS, RICHMOND

This hospital was in existence as early as
1172, for in the Pipe Roll of 18 Henry II is an
account of 5 seams of bread-corn given to the
sick persons in the hospital of Richmond by
Ralph de Glanville, Chief Justice of England,
The chantry priest also received, by the dona-
nation of Nicholas Kirkby, £3 year to celebrate
in the chapel of St. Edmund in Richmond.

In 1309 Pope Clement V granted a relaxation
of forty days of enjoined penance to penitents
who gave help to the master and brethren of the
hospital of St. Nicholas, Richmond, to hold good
for twenty years.

It was of the king’s foundation and patronage
as belonging to the honour of Richmond, and as
such the advowson was granted by Henry VI,
on the death of the Earl of Westmorland, to
John Duke of Bedford in 1425-6.°°

Nothing whatever is known of its history ”
until 1448, when Henry VI granted the ad-
vowson to William Ayscogh, one of the judges
of the King’s Bench, who had restored the
buildings from almost complete ruin, and had
founded a chantry for a second chaplain.*®

In the Valor Ecclesiasticus® the site of the
hospital with garden, &c., was valued at £8, and
other small properties in the neighbourhood
brought the value up to £13 12s.

According to the chantry certificate in 1546”
the master had no foundation to show, ‘but the
inhabitantes sey that there is a pryste that doth
Say masse iij dayes in the wek, and other iij
dayes at the chappell of Seynt Edmonde in the
sayd towne, and doth fynd a pore body in the
same.’ The hospital was distant half a mile
from the parish church. The ‘ goodes’ were
valued at 20d., and the plate nil. The total
value was £10 135.

Masters

Adam, occurs 1292 ©
William Stuteville, occurs 1338," 1352
Thomas de Collowe, occurs 1369 ®

“Whitaker, Hist. of Richmondshire, ii, 100.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, ii, 57.

* Gale, Reg. Hon. de Richmond, App. 208.

* Archbishop Kemp, in Sept. 1428, expressed
his intention to visit the hospital, but there is no
record of what took place; York Archiepis. Reg.
Kemp, fol. 210.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 720. According to the
Monasticon he was the same William Ascough who
resigned the mastership in 1437.

* Op. cit. v, 238.

®! Yorks, Arch. Fourn. xix, 45.

*s Egerton MS. 2827, fol. 339.

* Assize R. 1129, m. 17.

322

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Richard Clifford, occurs 1397 °

John Hylyard, occurs 1402

John Carlton

William Ayscough, resigned 1437 ©

Robert Ayscough, appointed 1437 °™

Richard Baldewyn, occurs 1535-6 and
1546 ®

153. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY
MAGDALENE, RIPON

At an inquisition held in September 1341 ©
the jurors made return that the hospital had been
founded by an unknown Archbishop of York.
Sisters only, with a chaplain, are there spoken of
as belonging to the hospital. They lived as if
professed (quasi religiose), and had certain specified
duties to perform as to the maintenance of lepers,
It was said that they all died, and that then a
change was made in the constitution of the
hospital, which is more fully alluded to at an
inquisition held in the following year. On that
occasion ”° the jurors stated that the hospital had
been founded by Archbishop Thurstan, who had
placed in it secular brothers and sisters, with a
chaplain. He had endowed the hospital that the
brothers and sisters should receive and maintain
all blind priests and lepers born in the liberty of
Ripon. Ten years later, on 19 November 1352,”
at another inquisition, the jurors repeated the
statement that Archbishop Thurstan was the
founder. They had learnt this, not from docu-
ments, but from what they had heard from their
forefathers and elders. The-jurors further stated
that an archbishop, whose name was unknown,
had altered the constitution of the hospital, and
had expelled thé brothers and sisters, on account
of ‘defects’ he had found at a visitation. ‘The
new constitution provided for a warden and a
chaplain, or for two chaplans, if the warden was
not a priest. They were to celebrate daily in
the chapel, and attend to the lepers.

At the visitation of 1341” the jurors found
that the archbishop (or sede vacante the king) was
the patron. The founder had endowed it with
a plot of land, with underwood, in Ripon called
Dunscewith, worth 100s. a year, on which the

* Pat. 21 Ric. II, m. 27.

* Predecessor of William Ayscough ; Early Chan.
Proc. bdle. 11, no. 220.

6 Thid

* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 238.

Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 2233; Dugdale,
Mon. Angi. vi, 620.
; 5 Sept. 1342; Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.),
i, 228.

" Thid. 234.

™ Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 223.

hospital had been placed, and he had granted a
supply of wood for fuel from Northscogh, and
certain pasturage there. ‘The hospital was also
to receive from each carucate of arable land in
‘ Ripshire’ a thrave of each kind of grain, which
was worth 20s. a year. The sisters were to
maintain a priest to celebrate in the chapel, and
any leper born or living in ‘ Ripshire’ coming to
the hospital was to receive a garment called a
‘Bak’ and two pairs of shoes yearly, besides
daily a loaf sufficient to sustain a man, half a
lagena of ale, an allowance of meat on meat
days, and of fish on fish days.

Afterwards, alms were given by different
persons to the hospital. A third part of Ilketon,
worth {£4 a year, was given by William de
Homelyn to find a chaplain to pray for his soul,
and the manor of Mulwith,’* worth 12 marks
a year, had been acquired by the hospital. The
jurors did not know whether the hospital chapel
had been dedicated or not, but those dying in the
hospital were buried there, by licence of the
chapter of Ripon. They proceeded to say that
one John le Waryner gave to the hospital in
the time of the then king the manor of Stud-
ley Roger, to find two chaplains in the hospital
while he lived, and after his death three chaplains,
and the hospital was bound to him in 12 marks
yearly while he lived. :

The jurors added that, the sisters being dead,
the archbishop of that day granted the hospital
to a certain Robert de Silkestone, chaplain, on
condition that he maintained the alms as regarded
the chantries and lepers. They also said that
John de Brideling[ton], an acolyte, was master,
having been appointed a year and a half pre-
viously by Archbishop Melton. One of the
chaplains had been withdrawn during all his
time, and there was no leper, none having
applied, and there were no brothers or sisters in
the hospital. Alms were given to the poor every
feast of St. Mary Magdalene, and the stock and
all else were well kept (except the withdrawal
of a chaplain and the demolition of a certain
building where the lepers dwelt by Henry de
Shirehake, formerly master). Archbishop Mel-
ton, in the time of Henry de Shirehake, despoiled
the hospital of certain land, pasturage, and fuel.
The master had been too short a time in office
to recover these rights. The only obligations
were those of the 12 marks to John le Wary-
ner while he lived, and the salaries of the two
chaplains. The master and chaplains were of
good report and honest conversation.

78¢ Mulewath’ and Newby, given cum corpore suo to
the hospital by William de Winchelcumbe, were
confirmed to them 15 Sept. 1241 by Archbishop
Walter Gray ; Archbp. Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 91.
The gift, however, was considerably earlier, for in
1228 the master of St. Mary Magdalene’s Hospital
was returned as holding in Newby and Mulwith ;
ibid. 62.

323

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

At the inquisition of 1342" the jurors made
return that the brothers and sisters of the hospital
were to receive all priests, when blind, who had
been born within the liberty of Ripon, and main-
tain them in the hospital, a special chamber
being set apart for them, and each was to receive
7d. weekly for his maintenance. They were
also to have a certain building for all lepers born
in the liberty, each of whom was to receive
3 bushel of corn, 1d. for drink each week, and
soup from the hospital daily.

Lepers from other parts, coming for a night,
were to have fuel and a bed. One William
‘Homell’ had endowed a second chaplaincy, and
afterwards a certain archbishop had changed the
constitution, deposing the brothers and sisters,
appointing a warden and chaplain in their place.
They were to celebrate daily, and the warden was
yearly to distribute, on St. Mary Magdalene’s
day, to all poor persons who came to the hospital,
a loaf of bread and a herring. He was also to
maintain the other alms of the old foundation ;
but they reported that there was only one chap-
lain, and the warden was not resident. The blind
priests received their alms, but the leper house
had been taken away for a long period, and no
alms were given to lepers.

It will be convenient here to go back and pick
up the threads of the earlier history of the hospital.

On 24 May 1294” Archbishop Romanus
accepted the resignation of Roger de Malton,
who had been master of the hospital. The
archbishop acknowledged having received certain
sums of money from him on that occasion, viz :
20 marks for goods belonging to the hospital
when he became master, which he had sold ;
£39 155. 24d., the balance of £100, which it
appears Archbishop Wickwane’® had given
towards the endowment of the hospital ; and also
a bond of Nicholas del Dale for £32 145. 9}d., of
which £17 145. gd. remained to be paid. Of
the £100, £42 10s. had been spent in the con-
struction of a new dwelling for the hospital
priests, and in investments for its behoof.

On 2 June following,” the archbishop con-
ferred the hospital on James de Cimiterio, priest,
declaring that he purposed to order differently
in the hospital, and with the money which
Roger de Malton had handed over to purchase
the advowson of some church to be appropriated
in perpetuity to the hospital, and that the master
for the time being should be a canon residentiary
in the church of Ripon.

On 29 August 1300 Archbishop Corbridge
ordered John de Hubard of Ripon, to whom
Giles de Garderobe, one of the canons, had leased
his prebend, to restore to the master of the

™ Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 228.
* York Archiepis Reg. Romanus, fol. 98.

* This suggests Wickwane as the archbishop who
changed the constitution.

York Archiepis, Reg. Romanus, fol. 98.

hospital certain tithes which he had wrongly
taken as lessee of the prebend, and which belonged
to the hospital.”* The following year (1301)
the same archbishop conferred the custody of the
hospital on a certain Patrick de Brafferton.”
This appointment led to much trouble, and on
27 September 1306 Archbishop Greenfield
directed Roger de Swayn, canon of Ripon, to
inquire into the condition of the hospital when
Patrick de Brafferton received itand its state when
he resigned ; and next day ® the archbishop
directed the Dean (rural) of Ripon to sequestrate
the property of the hospital, and not to permit
Brafferton to meddle with it. The investigation
proved Patrick de Brafferton to have been a bad
and wasteful master, of immoral life, and under
sentence of the greater excommunication for two
years. The archbishop removed him from office,
and on 16 October appointed Nicholas de Bonde-
gate, chaplain, warden in his stead.8? Much more
is recorded as to Patrick de Brafferton, which
includes an account of the state of the hospital
by J. de Cimiterio as it was when he was suddenly
ejected (as he stated) by Archbishop Corbridge five
or six years before.®? Besides an account of the
grain, &c., which he left to his successor, the
buildings were, according to his account, in a
good state of repair. The stuff in the chapel
included a fine crystal phial with relics of the
blessed Mary Magdalene, besides missal, legend,
grail, and other books and vestments. He also
left a quantity of household linen, but there
had been no indenture made between him and
Brafferton. No mention is made of any brothers
or sisters as at this period forming part of the
foundation.

Two years later, Edward II appointed Richard
de Doncastre* to the hospital sede vacante,
which called from the archbishop a reply * that
he had appointed Nicholas de Bondegate as suc-
cessor to Patrick de Brafferton, after he had
received restitution of the temporalities of the see
from Edward I. It is remarkable, however,
that the archbishop speaks of Patrick de Braffer-
ton having resigned of his own free will. On
account of Nicholas de Bondegate being master,
the archbishop refused admission to the king’s

™ Ibid. Corbridge, fol. 66.

” Ibid. fol. 914. On 16 June 1294 the archbishop
received 50 marks from Robert de Percy for the use
of the hospital, and appointed that Robert de Percy
was to be maintained in the hospital. On 10 Mar.
1294-5 the archbishop granted Hugh de Rossedale,
for his long and faithful service to the archbishop and
his church, food and clothing in the hospital. This
was confirmed by the Dean and Chapter of York
(Mem. of Ripon [Surt. Soc.], ii, 20).

“York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, i, fol. 34.d.

®\ bid. fol. 33 d. @ Tbid.

“Ibid. (on a slip of parchment between fol. 33
and 34).

“Pat. 2 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 16.

* Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 60-2.

324

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

nominee. ‘This led to an inquisition and visita-
tion of the hospital by the king in October 1308.
The jurors made return that Archbishop Cor-
bridge had conferred the hospital on Patrick de
Brafferton, who was to hold office during the
archbishop’s life, and that on the death of the
archbishop the late King Edward might have
conferred the hospital on one of his clerks sede
vacante. William de Greenfield, the then arch-
bishop, had dispossessed Patrick de Brafferton as
he was not entitled to hold office after the death
of Corbridge, the appointment not having been
confirmed by the chapter of York, and he had
conferred the hospital on Nicholas de Bondegate.
The jurors added that the hospital was worth 20
marks a year.®® Nicholas de Bondegate was
probably succeeded by Nicholas de Molendinis,
appointed § March 1311. His rule led to an
inquiry in 1317 held at Ribstone by the king’s es-
cheator citra Trentam,® when the jurors stated that
there ought to be two chaplains celebrating daily
in the hospital chapel, but that all the time that
Nicholas de Molyns (as he is there called) had
been custos, the chantry of one of the chaplains
had been abstracted by the master, That
hospitality was neglected, so that whereas any
pilgrims, or mendicant clerks, or other indigent
persons who passed by the hospital, ought to
have shelter, food, and a bed, they received
nothing, and were sent away empty handed. On
St. Mary Magdalene’s Day every poor person
who came ought to have a halfpenny loaf and a
herring, but instead Nicholas de Molyns gave
the poor who came on St. Mary Magdalene’s
Day a saucer of beans or flour, but most of the
poor got nothing, and other charitable works,
which were usual in such a hospital, were not
performed owing to the master’s frequent ab-
sence.

In 1320 ® Archbishop Melton had to inter-
vene on behalf of William de Ripon, a poor
blind chaplain who had been admitted to the
hospital by direction of Archbishop Greenfield,
but had been deprived of the benefits he ought
to receive, and was obliged to beg for his living.

In 1329 William de Poppleton was appointed
master,” and on that occasion and also on his
resignation in 1335 *! inventories of the property
of the hospital were compiled. On the latter
occasion the phial with the relics of the patron
saint is again mentioned, as a little shrine of the
blessed Mary Magdalene, on which was inscribed
‘De ossibus Beate Marie Magdalene et de
sudario ejusdem.’ A full account of the chapel
stuff and the farm stock is given.

Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 60-2.

York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 36.

* Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 211; Dugdale,
Mon. Angl. vi, 752.

* York Archiepis, Reg. Melton, fol. 406d.

Thid. fol. 974. :

* Ibid. fol. 4374.

The royal commissioners in 1342 ® had a
very unusual matter to deal with. A certain
John le Smale, by falsely representing to the
king that the master, John de Bridelington, was
dead, had obtained from Edward III a grant
(sede vacante on Melton’s death) of the master-
ship, dated 10 July 1342. The case was inves-
tigated at length, the result being that a mandate
was issued on 15 July 1345 for the prosecu-
tion of the offender, and on 7 November 1346
the king confirmed John de Bridelington in the
mastership.

At the royal visitation on 19 November
1352 John de Bridelington was still master,
and declared on oath that he had been appointed
by Archbishop Melton, whom he called
‘founder and patron’ of the hospital. He
stated that he had never seen any foundation
writing of the hospital, but had heard from many
of his seniors that it had been founded for poor
brothers and sisters, of whom there were none
then. By another ordinance there should be
two priests in the hospital, of whom the custos,
if a chaplain, might be one. Further, there
ought to be three chaplains for the rents of
Studley, lately acquired, each having 5 marks
yearly and a fit abode in the hospital. There
were then only four chaplains, including the
custos, owing to the slender revenue of Studley,
which brought in only 6 marks. The manor of
Studley was in a ruinous state, and the general
income of the hospital would not support more
than four chaplains. He had demolished a very
dilapidated building near the hospital towards the
River Ure, intended for the housing of lepers, none
of whom had used it for a long time, and with
the timber from it he had constructed a chamber
inside the hospital. From the evidence on oath
of the chaplains it appeared that there was no
foundation deed, but the chaplains had heard
that of old it was said there should be brothers
and sisters in the hospital. There should be
three priests celebrating for property in Ripon,
Mulwith, and Ilketon respectively, and three
other chaplains for lands in Studley Roger, but
there were only three chaplains, the custes making
a fourth, but he did not celebrate, and was com-
monly absent for the greater part of the year.

In 1354 Archbishop Thoresby in a letter to
Mr. John de Crakehall, whom he had recently
appointed custos,*° allowed two priests only
to be maintained in the hospital until the
revenues were increased. {£10 ought to have
been derived from Studley Roger, whereas it
only brought in 6 marks. Ina further letter *
the archbishop sanctioned the removal from
Studley of materials from the buildings there, for
the reparation of those of the hospital.

% Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 226.

8 Thid. 233. 4 Thid. 235.

% York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 29, 293.
% Tbid. fol. 35.

325

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

In 1356,” at the request of Mr. John
Crakehall the master, the newer taxation of
the hospital was exemplified. The Exchequer
Rolls having been examined, it was found that
in the reign of Edward I the temporalities
of the hospital were taxed at 13s. 4d, and
in 12 Edward II (1318-19) on account of
the destruction by the Scots had been reduced
to 55.

in 1535 there were two chaplains, each
receiving £4 a year from the master or custos,
and five poor laymen, oppressed with age and
disease, dwelling in the hospital, each receiving
6s. 8d.a year. The master, Marmaduke Bradley,”
had a house with garden and orchard and
£9 6s. 8d. Againsta total revenue of £27 55. 6d.
were outgoings (including the payment of £8
to the chaplains and £1 135. 4d. to the poor
inmates) amounting to £11 45. I1d., leaving a
clear income of £16 os. 7d.

The chantry certificate (1546-7) gives
much the same return. Marmaduke Bradley
was still master. He showed ‘no foundacon
but used ther to kepe ij preistes and v poore
people to pray for all Chrsten soulez, ather
the v poore people vjs. viijd.”. The ‘mancion
howse’ of the hospital with all the closes was
evidently not inhabited by the master, and
was, it appears, let for £8.

Both this hospital and that of St. John Baptist
“were attached to the [collegiate] church much in
the same way as were the chapels and chantries,’
and still continue among the charitable insti-
tutions of the city.

Its post-Reformation history is continued with
the complaint, made in 1567, against Mr.
Thomas Webster, master of the hospital, and
Mark Metcalfe and Christopher Bawdersby,
clerks (the two chaplains), that they were non-
resident. ‘The howseis goto ruyne and decaie,
and ther is no provision for releiffe of the poore.’?
The buildings, with the fortunate exception of
the ancient chapel, were rebuilt in 1674 by the
master, Dr. Richard Hooke, a prebendary of the
collegiate church.? Since his death on 1 January
1688-9 the Deans of Ripon have been masters
of the hospital.4

In 1838 the annual revenue amounted to
about £450, and, besides the master, there were
a chaplain and six poor sisters, the five senior of
whom received £3 125. 4d. a year, and the
youngest £2 13s. 4d. The chaplain only

” Pat. 30 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 17, de exemplificacione.

* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 252.

® The former Abbot of Fountains.

Yorks. Chant. Suro. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 366.

’ Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), iii, p. xiii.

* Ibid. ii, 345, citing a Visitation Book of Arch-
bishop Young.

* According to an inscription on them,

“ Mem. of Ripon, ii, 307.

received 20s., thus leaving the greater portion of
the revenue to the master.®

Masters

Robert, occurs 1268 °

Roger de Malton, resigned 12947

James de Cimiterio, succeeded 1295 *

Patrick de Brafferton, succeeded 1301,” re-
moved 1306

Nicholas de Bondegate, succeeded 1306

[Richard de Doncastre, appointed in error
1308 77]

Nicholas de Molendinis, appointed 1311-128

Henry de Shirokes, appointed 1317 ™

William de Popelton, appointed 1329,'° re-
signed 1334-5 7°

John de Welleton, succeeded 1334-5 " occurs
robe

re de Silkeston, before 1339”

John le Bridelington, acolyte,
1339,” occurs 1352”)

[John le Smale, appointed 1342 7]

John de Crakehall, appointed 1354,” resigned
1368 *

John de Gillyng, succeeded 1368”

Roger de Pikering, appointed 1374,”° resigned
1382." or 1383 °°

[Robert de Dalton, LL.B., succeeded 2 Nov.
1382 7]

[William Lynton, 24 Nov. 1382 *°]

Thomas Bromflete, 1383

William Skyrwith, resigned 1415 ”

Richard Bowett, succeeded 1415 *8

appointed

5 White, Hist. Gaz. and Dir. W. R. Yorks. (1838),
ii, 798.
° Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. 27.
7 York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 98.
® Ibid.
® Ibid. Corbridge, fol. 914.
10 Ibid. Greenfield, fol. 334. 1 Thid.
1 Pat. 2 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 16. See above.
3 York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 36.
“Ibid. Sed. vac. fol. 132.
% Ibid. Melton, fol. 97d.

Ibid. fol. 4374. " Tbid. 8 Ibid.
° Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 230 n.
» Tbid. " Ibid. 236.

"Ibid. 232. See above.

*® York. Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 29.

* Ibid. fol. 66. * Ibid.

*6 Ibid. A. Nevill, i, fol. 2.

7 Thid. fol. 111.

*Tbid. fol. 32. 19 Sept. 1383, exchange between
Roger de Pykeryng, custos of St. Mary Magdalene
Hospital, and Thomas Bromflete, canon of the chapel
of the Blessed Virgin Mary and All Angels, York.

” Thid. fol. 111.

*Tbid. Commission to admit William Lynton to
the hospital of St. Mary Magdalene, which Robert de
Dalton obtained. Apparently neither of these appoint-
ments fully took effect.

3 Ibid. fol. 32.

* Ibid. Bowett, fol. 53. * Ibid.

326

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

William Crowton, M.A., appointed 1441,
resigned 1445 *

Thomas Kemp, 8.T.B., Archdeacon of Rich-
mond, succeeded 1445 *8

Ranulph Bird, resigned 1462 *”

John Baddesworth, succeeded 1462, resigned
1465 8

Thomas Tanfeld, §.T.B., succeeded 1465 ®

Robert Witham, resigned 1479 *

William Poteman, LL.D., Archdeacon of
Cleveland, succeeded 14.79,” resigned 1484

Henry Carnebull, succeeded 1484, resigned
1485 %

Philip Lepyate, succeeded 1485,*° deceased
1488 47

Walter Feld, S.T.P., succeeded 1488 #

Anthony Sentlenger, resigned 1506 *

Marmaduke Huby, Abbot of Fountains, suc-
ceeded 1506, occurs 1512 ®!

Marmaduke Bradley, Abbot of Fountains, oc-
curs 1522-3," 1535,°° 1545, died 1553

Thomas Webster, occurs 1567 *@

Moses Fowler, occurs 1586 *”

John Favour, LL.D., appointed 1608, died
16238

John Favour (junior), appointed 1624 [died
1668 ©]

Richard Hooke, D.D., occurs 1674, died
1688-9

Christopher Wyvill, D.D., Dean of Ripon
Collegiate Church, succeeded 1689,™ died
1710®

154. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN
THE BAPTIST, RIPON

This hospital appears to have been founded by
Archbishop Thomas II of York (1109-1114).
By his charter the archbishop, for the love
of God and St. Wilfrid, gave to the hospital
of the poor folk of Ripon land in South Aller-
wick and Havercroft, with free multure at his
mills. These gifts were confirmed by his
immediate successor, Archbishop Thurstan, and

“York. Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 47. (Also
master of St. John’s.) 55 Thid. fol. 55.

% Thid. 7’ Ibid. W. Booth, fol. 1404.

* Ibid. 39 Tbid. G. Nevill, fol. 2.

Tbid. “Ibid. L. Booth, fol. 524.
Thid. “Ibid. Rotherham, i, fol. 98d.
“ Thid. “’ Ibid. fol. 3d. “ Thid.
“Ibid. i, fol. 103. * Ibid.

“Tbhid. Savage, fol. 34. 5 Tbid.

"Ibid. Bainbridge.

* Subs. R. bdle. 64, no. 300.

8 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 252.

4 Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 366.
* Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 224.
Ibid. ii, 345.’ Ibid. ii, 259.
* Ibid. 278. bid. 307.
“Thid. 308. (Also master of St. John’s.)
® Tbid. * Ibid. 271. 85 Tbid.
* Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 322-8.

Ibid. 277.
51 Tbid.

at an inquisition held on 11 July 1341 the
Jurors knew of no other founders.®

On 11 December 1222 Pope Honorius III
exempted ‘the rector and brothers’ of the hos-
pital of St. John Baptist of Ripon from payment
of tithes.°® The most important event in the
history of the hospital was the appointment
in 1340 by the king of David de Wollore
to the mastership. This appointment, made
sede vacante after the death of Melton, while
Robert de Otteleye, a layman, appointed by
Melton, still held office,” led to inquisitions and
visitations, which tell most of what is known
about the hospital.

The Rural Dean of Ripon held the inquiry on
tr July 13417 by jury, when return was
made as to the foundation by Archbishop
Thomas, and its confirmation by his successor.
The jurors stated that the hospital possessed 50 a.
in Studley and Bishopton ; 4 a. at Stanley ; and
24 a. in the field of Ripon, besides which there
were 5 a. given by different people, on which the
custos paid tithe. The hospital might be ruled
by a layman, so long as he was unmarried, and it
had been so ruled time out of mind. The custos
received the third sheaf of seven Flatts at Whit-
cliffe, not in the way of tithe, but as alms, and
there were no spiritualities or oblations that they
knew of belonging to the hospital.

On 5 September” in the same year another
inquisition was held, when the jurors found that
the hospital was endowed, in part, with spirituali-
ties, which a layman ought not to receive, and
therefore, that Robert de Otteleye ought to be
removed from office and David de Wollore
admitted to it.

The jurors, on this occasion, reported that the
hospital was originally endowed, when the land
about Ripon was in a wild state, to provide hos-
pitality for poor travellers, but that afterwards,
when the country was cleared and built upon,
the hospital was to support poor clerks, keeping
their schools in Ripon, four or five of whom were
to have soup daily, and beds at night, besides
twice a week a loaf, six of which were to be
made from a bushel of corn. The hospital
ought also to provide all poor persons seeking
alms with soup twice a week, one time pease,
the other time herb.

There was no brother or sister in the hospital.
On the feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist
yearly the custos ought to give alms to every poor
person who came, either bread or flour ; he
ought also to find a chaplain to celebrate in the
chapel, which was dedicated and in which the
late master had been buried.

§ Ibid. ii, 123. % Thid. 83.

® Ibid. 186. David de Wollore was for many
years Master of the Rolls. He held the prebend of
Studley Magna in Ripon Collegiate Church.

7 [bid. i, 212. 7 Tbid. ii, 123.

Ibid. i, 217.

327

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The King’s Bench gave judgement in favour
of David de Wollore, who was admitted.” His
appointment was greatly to the advantage of the
hospital, which by the neglect of its masters had
become much impoverished. In 130174 William
de Somerset, on his resignation of the mastership,
had left certain cattle, &c., for the use of the
poor and sick of the hospital, and Archbishop
Corbridge, in accepting his resignation, con-
firmed the gifts, and ordered that successive
masters should make them good as they failed.
David de Wollore found the property and stock
so diminished ” that the hospital could scarcely
maintain its inmates, or perform its obligations.
He generously re-endowed it, in order that it
might be able to maintain its good works in the
celebration of masses by the master or a fit
chaplain, as also in the exhibitions of poor boys
attending the grammar schools of Ripon. What
he gave is shown in an indenture of 6 September
1370, between his attorney and John de Brigg,
who succeeded him as custos. The list is too
long to be given here, but he provided a large
stock of horses, cattle, and sheep, various house-
hold goods, two chests with the muniments, and
service books for the chapel, a high table for
the hall, and ploughs and other agricultural
implements at Havercroft. These goods, or
their value, were to be handed down from
master to master.

On 5 July 1419”° Pope Martin V granted
(on the ground that the mastership was not worth
more than 10 marks annually, out of which the
master was unable to support the burdens in-
cumbent on him) that the master might hold
with it four other benefices compatible with it,
even if one were a parish church, or perpetual
vicarage, and might exchange them for others.

On 10 August 14547 Archbishop William
Booth granted forty days’ indulgence to all who
visited the chapel of the hospital on certain feasts,
or who gave of their goods to the chapel in
offerings, or for ornaments, lights, or other pious
help. The suffragan ‘Johannes Philopolen
episcopus’’* also granted like indulgence.

At the time of the Valor Ecclesiasticus (1535)
Edward Brigham was master of the hospital ‘ or
house ’ of St. John the Baptist. The house with
a close annexed was valued at 1os., and there
were rents in Ripon and Studley making a total
of £10 145. 4d. In 1545-6 © John Rogers was

™ Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 223.

™ Ibid. ii, 29. * Thid. 130.

° York Archiepis. Reg. Bowett, fol. 684,

7 Tbid. W. Booth, fol. 1604.

”® He was master of the hospital at the time, having
been appointed on 14 Sept. 1453; ibid. fol, 308,

® Op. cit. v, 251.

© Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 368. There
was ‘one tenement called Saynt John House, with ij
closes in Bongate in the tenure of Christofer Watson’
(385. 82).

incumbent ‘shewynge no Foundacion but of a
contynuall use to pray for all Cristien sowlez and
to celebrate Masse and other dyvyne service in
the Chapell of the same Hospitall at his plesure.’
The goods were valued at 5s. 2d. and the plate
at 27s. The total rental was £12 os. 4d.

In 1570-1 * Thomas Blakburn, master, was
ordered on 5 February to bring in the foundation
of his hospital at Ripon before the High Com-
mission at York, and on 13 March following he
was proceeded against ‘for hearing masse in
Rebellion tyme, and other Papisticall servyce,’
for which he was fined £6 135. 4d., and was
ordered to do penance. Other charges had
already been brought against him as one of the
curates of the then late collegiate church.

In 1544-5 * a commission was granted b
King Henry VIII empowering the Archbishops
of York, for the time being, to dispose of the
government of the hospitals of St. John the
Baptist and St. Mary Magdalene, in and near
Ripon, and to have the appointment of the
masters. In this way both these hospitals have
survived as almshouses. Among the _post-
Reformation masters of St. John’s, before the
mastership was annexed to the deanery, are two
notable names, viz. those of Dr. John Wilkins
(1660), Bishop of Chester (1668-72), one of
the founders of the Royal Society, and Dr. John
Bramhall (1625) * afterwards the well-known
Primate of Ireland. Since January 1688-9 *
the Deans of Ripon have been and still are ex
officio masters of the two hospitals of St. John
and St. Mary Magdalene.

In 1838 the income of the hospital was £340,
received by the master, who paid 20s. to the
chaplain, and £1 7s. 6d. to each of the two
almswomen called sisters. The building was
used as a boys’ school.®%

Masters

Walter le Botiller, resigned 1295 ®”
William de Somerset, confirmed
resigned 1301 ®
William de Thorp, confirmed 1313
John Paynel, appointed sede vacante 13177
Robert de Otteley, removed 1341
David de Wollore, appointed 1341 *
John de Brigg, succeeded, occurs 1370

1295,"

* Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), iii, 346.

” Ibid. i, 245. ® Thid. ii, 265.

* Ibid. 280. * Ibid. 271,
= * White, Hist. Gaz. and Dir. W.R. Yorks. (1838),
ii, 790.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 984.

* Tbid.

® Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 29.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 41.

* Pat. 10 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 29.

” Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 217, 322.

® Thid. * Ibid. ii, 129.

328

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Roger Haward, resigned 1398 *°

Robert Tanfeld, succeeded 1398 °°

Robert Colhome, appointed 1413," resigned

- 1418

John Wodham, succeeded 1418,” resigned
1418-19 1°

John Brommesgrave, succeeded 1418-19 *

John Soulby, occurs 1419?

Robert Young, occurs 1433 °

John Pakenham *

William Crowton, succeeded 1441,° resigned
1445 °

Nicholas Kene, LL.B., succeeded
resigned 1448-9 °

Ranulph Bird, succeeded 1448-9,° resigned
(query in 1450)

Thomas Gyvendale, 1450"

John, Bishop of Philippopolis, suffragan,”
1453, died 1459"

Richard Musin, Bishop of Dromore, succeeded
1459 ™

John Grene, Bishop of The Isles, suffragan,
1462-3,” resigned 1464"

John Suthwell, succeeded 1464”

Robert Jesson, resigned 1485

John Triguram, succeeded 148 5,/° occurs
30

1445,"

1522-3

Edward Brigham, occurs 1535 7

John Rogers, appointed 1538,” occurs
1545-6

Thomas Blackburne, occurs 1567,7* 1570-1"

Christopher Lyndall, occurs 1604,%° deceased
1624.7

George Procter, appointed 1623 *

John Favour, jun., occurs circa 1624

John Bramhall, appointed 1625,°° voided the ©

mastership 1634 **

* York Archiepis. Reg. Scrope, fol. 1. % Ibid.

bid. Bowett, fol. 47. $8 Tbid. fol. 514.

® Tbid. 1 Tbid. ? Ibid.

* Thid. fol. 684.

5 Baildon, Mon. Notes (Yorks. Arch. Soc.), i, 181.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 479.

5 Tbid. ® Ibid. fol. 554. 7 Ibid. fol. 56.

8 Ibid. fol. 66. * Ibid.

” Ibid. fol. 76, where it is said that the vacancy was

_due to the resignation of Nicholas Kene—probably
a clerical error.

" Tbid. % Tbid. W. Booth, fol. 30d.

8 [bid. fol. 49. Bishop Musin’s name occurs, with
that of Archbishop Scrope, on the silver band of the
well-known Maser bowl at York, as each granting
forty days pardon ‘on to all tho that drinkis of this

cope.’
" Tbid. 18 Ibid. fol. 552.

- SIbid. Sede vacante, fol. 444. 1 Thid.
* Tbid. Rotherham, fol. 3. ® Ibid.

” Subs. R. bdle. 64, no. 300.

| Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 251.

™ York Archiepis. Reg. Lee, fol. 71.

® Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 368.

* Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ili, 345.

* Thid. 348. *© Thid. ii, 287.

* Thid. % Thid. 313. 9 Ibid. 307.

John Wilkins, appointed 1660

Richard Hooke, occurs 1674,*° deceased 1 Jan.
1688-9 *

Christopher Wyvill, dean of the collegiate
church, appointed 31 January 1688-9 *

155. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. ANNE,
OR THE MAISON DIEU, RIPON

This hospital was founded by some unknown
person early in the 15th century for four men,
four women, and a chaplain, with two beds for
wayfarers.*® Apparently it had no permanent
endowment but was maintained by the alms
collected for it. It was in existence before
1438, for John Granby, rector of a moiety of
South Otterington, in that year bequeathed
money towards payment of a priest to celebrate
for his soul ‘in capella vocata le maisendieu
Ripon,’ ” Unlike the two other hospitals at
Ripon it had no connexion with the collegiate
church, On 3 April 1479%% Archbishop
Laurence Booth granted an indulgence of forty
days, for three years, to all who contributed to
the maintenance of the house or hospital of St.
Anne and the poor living in it; and on 8
August 1481* Archbishop Rotherham granted
another indulgence of forty days to all who,
having confessed, gave towards the maintenance
of the eight poor persons of either sex in ‘le
masyndew ’ in Ripon.

A regular system of procurators or nuncit,
soliciting alms for the hospital, is evidenced in
Archbishop Booth’s brief of indulgence, and the
original copy of one such appeal, made in 1516,
has been preserved. It is addressed by Seth
Snawden of Bilton and Robert Stokes of
Bickerton and witnesses that a chapel and
‘massendew’ was founded in Ripon ‘by our
ancestor’ in honour of St. Anne, within which
“massendew’” were one priest and eight poor
folks, men and women, who in time past had
been of good behaviour, and that there were also
two common beds ‘for every lone travelling man
that hath noe spending, and there he may be
cared one day and one night in fulfilling of the
seaven workes of mercy.’

539 Ibid. 280.

81 Tbid. 281. He voided all his English preferments
in 1634 on his appointment to the bishopric of
Derry. In 1660-1 he became Primate of Ireland.

% Tbid. 265. He was also at the same time ap-
pointed Dean of the collegiate church of Ripon.

88 Ibid. 307. He was also master of St. Mary
Magdalene’s Hospital.

% Ibid. 271. % Tbid.

3 Walbran, Guide to Ripon, &c. (12th ed.), 78."

87 Tbid.

%® Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 157.

9 York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 192.

“0 Historic Ripon (1890), 177-

3 329 a

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The hospital still exists, and in 18384
sheltered eight poor women. It is said that it
was founded by a member of the Nevill family.”
Since the Reformation it has received various
benefactions, but in 1838 its yearly income was
only about £50, which was divided among the
almspeople.

156-8. THE HOSPITALS OF
SCARBOROUGH

Tue Hosprrat oF St. NicHoLas.—At an
inquisition held in 1297-8 it was found that both
the hospitals of St. Nicholas and St. Thomas
the Martyr at Scarborough were anciently
founded by the burgesses of that town. As
regarded St. Nicholas’s Hospital the jurors made
return that the goods of the hospital were
used for the service of the brothers and sisters,
that no one had injured or dilapidated the
hospital, and that no lands had been appropriated
without warrant, that its property was in the
hands of the brothers and sisters, and that the
bailiffs of the town with four other men of the
borough audited the accounts.

In 1332 Edward III granted to John the
Prior and the convent of the Holy Trinity, York,
the hospital of St. Nicholas ‘juxta Scardeburgh’
with the custody of the same, and the hospital
from thenceforward became dependent on the
priory. ‘This grant was confirmed by Henry VIII
on 27 October 1518.44 In the Ministers’
Accounts ** of the property of the late priory of
Trinity at York, 100s, is accounted for as the
rent of all the messuages, lands, tenements, &c., in
‘Skerburgh’ and ‘Fallegrave’ belonging to the
hospital of St. Nicholas of ‘Skerburgh’ which
had been let to Hugh Hungate for thirty-three
years from Michaelmas 1532, who was to pay
for the same 9g score salt fishes, a barrel of white
herrings, and a ‘cade’ of red herrings, besides
115. 8d., all of which had been commuted for the
100s. a year.

Masters

William de Cliff, appointed 1316 *
William de Thweng, occurs 1406 17

“ White, Hist. Gaz. and Dir. W.R. Yorks. (1838),
ii, 798. ” Ibid.

© Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi (2), 639. On 14 May
1318 Archbishop Melton informed the vicar of
Scarborough that on the Monday following he
intended to visit the two hospitals of St. Nicholas
and St. Thomas, and inquire by four clerks and six
‘laicos fidedignos’ as to their state. York Archiepis.
Reg. Melton, fol. 2684.

“ Pat. 10 Hen. VIII, pt. i, m. 4, which quotes in
extenso the grant of 6 Edw. III.

“* Mins. Accts. 28-9 Hen. VIII, no. 4461,

“ Pat. g Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 11.

“ Torre’s MS. pt. ii.

William Calthorpe, appointed died

1457 47a
Thomas Eyre, appointed 14574”

1441,

Tue Hosprrat oF St. THoMaAs THE Mar.
TyR.—At the inquisition held in 1297-8 * it
appeared that the hospital of St. Thomas had
been founded by the burgesses, on land originally
given by Hugh de Bulmer for that purpose, and
that the master was appointed by the burgesses,
There appears to have been considerable dis-
turbance at one time, when a Roger Wastyse
ejected William le Champneys, the master, and
the brothers and sisters of the hospital, because he
had given false information to the king as toa
donation of land being made by Roger’s grand-
father in pure and free alms to the hospital.

Besides the hospitals of St. Nicholas and St,
Thomas the Martyr, there were at least four
others in Scarborough, which are mentioned in
the will of John Stokdale, burgess, dated
8 October 1468," viz., the hospital of St.
Stephen, to the poor of which he left 3s. 4d. ;
that of St. James (6s. 8¢.); that of the Blessed
Virgin Mary (35. 4d.) ; and the hospital of St.
Mary Magdalene (3s. 4¢.), which appears to
have been near the castle. He also left 35. 4d.
to the poor of St. Nicholas, and 6s. 8d. to those
of St. Thomas.

159. THE HOSPITAL OF SEAMER

This hospital was presumably founded by one
of the Percy family, as in November 1490
Henry VII presented John Sutton to the warden-
ship of the hospital of St. Laurence near Seamer,
Robert Wentlegh, clerk, having resigned, and the
patronage being in the hands of the Crown by
reason of the minority of Henry, Earl of
Northumberland."

160. THE HOSPITAL OF ST.
LEONARD, SHEFFIELD

According to Mr. Richard Holmes, in his
account of the Lazarite Hospital of Foulsnape at
Pontefract, this was also a hospital of that order,”
but unfortunately he does not give any authority

“® Cal. Pat. 1441-6, p. 7.

‘™ Ibid. 1452-6, p. 389.

“ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 639.

The bequest to the latter is ‘ pauperibus existenti-
bus circa fossum castri cum pauperibus in hospicio
Sancte Marie Magdalene iijs. iiijd’ The word
hospicium and not hospitale is used in each instance,
including the hospitals of St. Nicholas and St.
Thomas.

* Materials for Hist. of Hen. VII (Ross Ser.), ii, § 30.

” Yorks. Arch. Fourn. x, 545.

330

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

for the statement. The hospital was founded
by William de Lovetot, whose charter, a small
slip of parchment with some remains of the
appendent seal, was in 1869 in the charge of
the Duke of Norfolk’s auditor. Dr. Gatty,®
from the witnesses’ names, assigns it to the reign
of Henry II. By it, William de Lovetot
granted to the sick (i#firmis) of Sheffield the land
which Roger held by the bridge of Don, and their
living (victus), which was to be taken from his
mill of Sheffield. The original endowment was
not large, but the hospital probably received
other gifts as time went on. Dodsworth, who
visited Sheffield in August 1620, says: ‘There
hath been a spittle there on this side the bridge.’
Nothing whatever has been discovered as to its
history except that in 1299 Daniel, the keeper
of the hospital, complained of Maud de
Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick, Thomas de
Furnival, and Richard del Clogh of Hallam, for
unjustly disseising him of his free tenement in
SLeffield.** The hospital stood on a little emi-
nence on the east side of the town, still called
the Spittal-hill, In an inquisition as to con-
cealed lands, 12 February 1583, it is spoken of
as a decayed chapel called St. Leonard’s Chapel
in the parish of Sheffield. In 1522-3 Dom.
Edward Hadfeld was chaplain ‘apud le Spittell ’
at Sheffield, his stipend being £6 per annum.™

161. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY
MAGDALENE, SHERBURN - IN -
ELMET

The Monasticon® has the following notice of
this hospital : ‘Tanner says, “upon the arch-
bishop’s register about the year 1311 mention is
made of an hospital here, dedicated to St. Mary
Magdalene; the wardenship of which was in
the archbishop’s gift.” ? ‘The reference intended
is no doubt to the appointment by Archbishop
Greenfield on 21 May 1311 of Robert de
Mysterton ‘ad custodiam hospitalis nostri beate
Marie juxta Sherburn.’ Henry III granted pro-
tection for five years to the master and brethren
of this hospital in 1261.5 Archbishop Thoresby
on 10 June 1360 appointed Richard Kay as
custos of the hospital or hermitage of Sherburn.
It seems that a certain ‘frater Johannes de
Kildesby heremita’ had at that time deserted

* Hunter, Hallamshire (ed. Gatty, 1869), 40, 312.
From Dr. Gatty’s edition the information here given,
when not otherwise described, has been derived.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes (Yorks. Arch. Soc.), i, 203.

* Subs. R. bdle. 64, no. 300.

Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi (2), 782. The site of
this hospital is probably indicated by that of a house
called ‘ Magdalene Hall’ in Jeffrey’s Map of York-
shire, 1772, on the road between Sherburn and
Cawood.

* Cal. Pat. 1258-66, p. 139.

the charge of the hospital or hermitage for a
lengthened period, and had gone wandering away
from it, the archbishop, unwilling that it should
continue bereft of its custos, appointed Richard
Kay in his place.

Warvens or HERMITS oF SHERBURN

Dom. Henry Fraunceys, clerk, 13007
Dom. Robert de Mysterton, 1311 ©
Dom. John de Carleton, died 1346
Dom. John de Midelton, 1346 succ.®
Frater John de Kildesby, deserted
Dom. Richard Kay, appointed 1360
John Alkokes, hermit, appointed 1369 ©

THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY
MAGDALENE, SKIPTON

It appears from an inquisition®! as to the
extent of the manor of Skipton in Craven taken
in 1310 that this was a free chapel within the
castle of Skipton, and that the advowson be-
longed to the lord of the castle. The chapel
was called the hospital of St. Mary Magdalene,
and had been founded by the alms of the said
lord and the freemen of Skipton for the sup-
port of lepers. In 1327 John, Prior of
Bolton, was attached to answer Thomas de
Gargrave, the master of this hospital, for seizing
goods belonging to it, valued at 20 marks, in
1306, the hospital at that time being vacant.
The goods taken consisted of corn, barley, oats,
and brazen cups and plates. The master claimed
100 marks damage, and the case was sent to a
jury. Whitaker ® says: ‘At Skipton was an
ancient hospital, of which I find only a single
notice in the person of one Robert styling him-
self capellanum (sic) Hospitalis de Skepton, 24
Edw. III.’ (1350-1).

162.

THE HOSPITAL OF ST. ED-
MUND, SPROTBROUGH

A licence in mortmain was granted by Ed-
ward III, 28 October 1364, to John Fitz
William of ‘ Emeleye,’ kt., that he might grant
half an acre of woodland in Sprotbrough, not held

163.

57 Torre’s ‘ Peculiars.’

5° York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, fol. 5 3.

5 Ibid. Zouch, fol. 7. In the register he is
called John de Midelton ‘ filius Ricardi le Marechale.’
Somehow Torre has erred and inserted Ricard le
Marescall as the name of his successor.

5 Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 106.

% Ibid. fol. 157.

61 Chan. Ing. p.m. 3 Edw. II, no. §9.

6 Baildon, op. cit. i, 205.

8 Whitaker, Hist. and Antig. of Craven (ed. Morant,

1878), 438. ;
Pat. 38 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 28.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

in capite, to the master and chaplains of the hospital
of St. Edmund of Sprotbrough. By the time of
the survey of the chantries, although - still
retaining the name of hospital, it was also called
St. Edmund’s Chapel, and had become an
ordinary chantry chapel. Anthony Burdit was
returned as the ‘incumbent,’ and it was said to
be of the foundation of Fitz Williams,® to
‘th’entente the sayd incumbent shulde pray for
the soul of the sayd founder, and all Christen
soules, and celebrate masse, and other dyvyne
service in the chappell of the sayd hospital,’
which was distant from the parish church a mile
and ahalf. The goods were valued at 19s. 74.,
and the plate at 24s. The hospital possessed
lands and tenements, ‘ beying in dyvers places,’
valued in all at £9 14s. 11d. Among them
was ‘j messuage with th’appurtenances called
Ancres House with an orcharde and a close
in tholdyng of Elizabeth Whyte wydowe.’
There was also a parcel of meadow ground
called ‘the Ancresse Ings.’® It is noteworthy
that the chantry of St. Katherine in the parish
church of Sprotbrough ‘was fyrste founded by
John Fitz Williams in the sayd hospitall of
Seynte Edmonde, and afterwards removed to
th’aulther of Seynt Edmonde ([Qy. St.
Katherine] aforsayd to pray for hys soule and all
Christen soules.’

164. THE HOSPITAL OF SNAITH

In a roll of Pleas of the Crown of the time of
Edward I the jurors of the soke of Snaith re-
ported that unknown malefactors had killed
Roger Blakedog ‘in a certain hospital outside the
town of Snaith which is called Dor’.®

165. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY,
STAXTON

The position of this hospital is still indicated
by a farm called‘ Spital House,’ in a hamlet of
the parish of Willerby in the East Riding. In
1297 the hospital paid 4s. 8d. as its ninth, and
in Kirkby’s Inquest ™ it is recorded that there were
7 carucates of land in Staxton, of which the
hospital of St. Mary held 1 carucate in alms, of
the gift of Gilbert de Gaunt. The hospital
belonged to the priory of Bridlington.”

“The foundation may have been that of John
Fitz William in 1364, and possibly a larger establish-
ment with a master and chaplains was contemplated,
but never carried into effect.

* Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), i, 155.

*" Ibid. 156.

® Assize R. 1109, m. 7.

Yorks. Lay Subs. (Yorks. Arch. Soc.), 137.

” Op. cit. (Surt. Soc.), 52.

™ Langdale, Topog. Dict. of Yorks. 195.

166. THE HOSPITAL OF TADCASTER

A hospital must have been founded at an early
date in Tadcaster, as about 1186 Maud de
Percy, Countess of Warwick, finding that the
revenues of the hospital were greatly reduced,
made it over to the abbey of Sawley.’”" The
infirm inmates agreed to the grant on condition
that the monks provided for them as domestici
fratres and did not remove them.”” Richard de
Percy afterwards confirmed to the abbey a
carucate of land which used to belong to the
hospital of Tadcaster.”? The hospital possibly
continued in use as a leper-house, as John
Gysburne, citizen and merchant of York, in
1385" left 55. ‘domui leprosorum de Tadcaster.’

167-9. THE HOSPITALS OF
TICKHILL

There is an undated letter of Archbishop
Walter Gray,” apparently of the year 1225,
addressed to the clergy and laity of the deaneries
of Doncaster and Retford, exhorting them to
contribute towards the brothers of St. Leonard
of Tickhill, whose sad condition he recommends
to their charity.’ That it was a leper-house is
evident from a protection granted by Henry III
on 8 September 1236, for the lepers of the hospital
of St. Leonard, ‘ Thikehill,’ for three years from
the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(8 September).”° It was possibly identical with

Tue HosprraL In THE Marsu.— Arch-
bishop Melton on 19 June 1325 commis-
sioned John de Sutton, rector of Hemsworth,
to visit on his behalf the hospital or chapel in
the marsh near Tickhill, by whatever name it
was called, and the brothers, priests, servants,
and ministers living in the same hospital or
chapel, and to inquire into its defects, and
matters pertaining to it, and the excesses of the
forenamed persons, and to correct the same.”

According to the Monasticon this hospital or
chapel was afterwards annexed to the small
Benedictine abbey of Humberston in Lincoln-
shire, and, as part of the possessions of that house,
was granted in the first year of Queen Mary to
Thomas Reve and George Cotton.”

Tue Matson Dizv.—It is quite possible that
this represents the ancient hospital of St. Leonard,
and Langdale seems to take it for granted that it is

"3 Harl. MS. 112, fol. 155d.

n> Tbid. ” Ibid. fol. 111d.

™ B. H. Cooke, Early Civic Wills of York, 5.

® Archbp. Gray’s Reg. (Surt: Soc.), 1.

™ Dugdale, Mon. Ang/. (quoting Tanner), vi, 782.
® Cal. Pat. 1232-47, p. 158.

York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 166.

7” Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 430.

337

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

the same,” but there are no deeds or charters
extant relating to the foundation and endowment
of the Maison Dieu, which is one of the charities
of Tickhill. It

was rebuilt in 1730, and contains eight separate
tenements for as many poor persons, and the charity
is under the management of three inhabitants of the
parish called Maison Dieu masters, who are nomi-
nated once in three years by the inhabitants and occu-
piers of the almshouse, each of the trustees acting
exclusively in the direction for one year. The in-
come arises from the rent of 29 a.o r. 18 p.of land,
two houses, and rent-charges of {1 25. 2d. Each of
the poor persons, usually widows, receives 65. a
month, and they have divided among them {2 at
Tickhill Fair, and £1 on the rent day, and they re-
ceive each of them one load of coals per annum.
The residue of the rents is applied in support of the
almshouse and the buildings on the charity estate.”

170. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. LAW-
RENCE, UPSALL-IN-CLEVELAND

From some deeds in the Guisborough Chartu-
lary ® itappears that William Pinchun, c. 1150-
70," gave half an acre of arable land and half
an acre of meadow to the hospital of the lepers
of Upsall. About 1180* Walter de Upsall
confirmed to the house of the sick of Upsall an
acre of land which Ralph his father had given
for the good of his, and his wife’s and children’s
souls ; in return the hospital should provide for
him so long as he lived. Ina grant by Walter
de Hoton® to the hospital of St. Leonard of
Lowcross certain of the lands are described as
being on the east side of the hospital of Upsall,
showing that both hospitals were then in exist-
ence, arly in the next century, however,
(between 1213 and 1234) * Walterde Percy and
ten other persons whose ancestors had endowed
the hospital of St. Lawrence of Upsall trans-
ferred those grants to the lepers of Lowcross,
and this no doubt marks the end of the hospital
of Upsall. Rather later, Alan de Bulleford
released to St. Leonard of Lowcross and the
lepers there whatever claim he had, or might
have, in the croft and dwelling ‘ubi quondam
fuit Hospitale §. Laurentii de Upsale.’ *

The memory of the hospital is, possibly, still
perpetuated by a farm-house called ‘Spite Hall.’

™ Langdale, Topog. Dict. of Yorks. 431.
™ Lawton, Coll. Rerum Eccl. &c. 235.
© Op. cit. (Surt. Soc.), i, no. 343, 370, 381, 382,

* Tbid. 185, while Cuthbert, a witness, was Prior
of Guisborough.

* Ibid. 189, while Ralph, a witness, was prior.

® Ibid. 187,

“ Ibid. 191, while Michael, a witness, was prior.

® Ibid. 176.

THE HOSPITAL OF ST.
MICHAEL, WELL

This hospital was founded in 1342 by Ralph
Nevill, kt., lord of Middleham,®* pro remissione
peccatorum meorum, as he states in the foundation
charter. It was dedicated to the honour of
Almighty God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, blessed
Michael Archangel, and All Saints, and was to
be called the hospital of St. Michael. It was
intended for the increase of divine worship, the
maintenance of poor pitiable persons, and other
works of piety, in perpetuity. For this purpose
the licence of King Edward and also of Robert
de Wodehous, Archdeacon of Richmond, had
been obtained, and the founder endowed it with
the capital messuage of Well, called Houd, and
a number of other tenements in Well which are
fully described in the charter, as also the ad-
vowson of the church of Well. All were
conferred on Dom. John de Stayndrop, chaplain,
the master, and the priests and the poor brothers
and sisters dwelling in the hospital. The master
was to have with him, dwelling in the hospital,
two fit priests, wearing closed supertunics of
black or blue woollen cloth, with a cloak of
black cloth, which vesture the master also was
to wear. There were to be twenty-four poor
and sick or feeble persons dwelling together in
the same house, and the master and priests were
to say and sing all the canonical hours, as also
three masses each day devoutly.

In 1342 Archbishop Zouch,” on the ground
that the endowments were insufficient, granted
the hospital power to appropriate the church of
Well to their uses, a due portion being assigned to
a vicar, who should reside and have cure of souls.

By his- will, of 1386, John Nevill of Raby
desired his executors to buy the advowson of a
church worth 40 4. or 80 marks and appropriate
it to the hospital of Well; from this revenue
the master was to receive 10 marks yearly, and
each brother or sister 2d. or 3d. daily, and
from any surplus as many chaplains were to be
maintained as the money would permit.°”

In 1535 *® Richard Threpland was master,
and the total revenue of the hospital amounted
to £42 12s. 3d. The number of inmates had
been reduced to fourteen bedemen, who daily
prayed for the souls of the founders. In the
certificates of chantries®® George Nevyll is re-
turned as master. The hospital was of the
foundation of Rauffe Nevyle, to the intent that
there should be a master, two priests, and
twenty-four poor folks called ‘eremettes’ to
pray for the king and queen, the founders, and
all Christian souls. The twenty-four poor

17T.

8 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi (2), 702.

8 York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 654
8'a Wills and Inventories (Surtees Soc.), 41.
88 Gale, Reg. Hon. de Richmond, 283.

8 Yorks. Chant. Suro. (Surt. Soc.), i, 110.

333

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

folk were, besides their lodging, to have a loaf of
bread daily, half a gallon of ale, and 45. each
yearly. For a long time there had been but
fourteen poor folk, and 26s. 8d. apiece for their
“dueties and dyettes.” The lack of ten of the
poor folk was alleged by the master to be due
to the loss of the profits of the parsonage of
Well, by decay of tillage in the parish. The
goods were valued at £19 10s. 2d., and the
plate at £4 6s. The total revenues were
£65 55. 7d., less outgoings of £16 155. 344.
leaving a clear total of £48 105. 344.

John Lord Latimer in 1542 attached a
grammar-school to the foundation for a term of
forty years. The site is now occupied by a post-
Reformation hospital with a chapel.

Masters oF WELL HosPITAL

John de Stayndrop (first master), 1342 °°
Thomas de Aykeskarth, occurs 1390”
John Bosville, occurs 1413

John Middleton, occurs 1460," 1474 a
Richard Threpland, occurs 1526 “
George Nevyll, D.D., occurs 1546

172. WENTBRIDGE LEPER HOUSE

The only known allusion to the former exist-
ence of this house is contained in the will of
John de Gysburne, citizen and merchant of
York (1385). He bequeathed 55. domui
leprosorum apud Wentbrig.

173-4. THE HOSPITALS OF WHITBY

Tue Hosprrat or Sr. MicHager.— The
origin and early history of this hospital are
contained in two documents in the Whitby
Chartulary.” In 1109, during the abbacy of
William de Percy, the first abbot, a leper named
Orm sought from the abbot and convent a place
where he might make his habitation. A place
afterwards called ‘Spitylbrydg’ or ‘Ad Pontem
Hospitalis,’ was granted him, as well asa corrody
of seven loaves and seven /agenae of aleweekly, and
a daily service of meat or fish, such as the convent
had. Afterwards others, lepers or not, were
permitted to live at the hospital, and it was
agreed by Abbot William, as well as by his

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 702.

Anct. D. (P.R.O.), B 276.

* Baildon, op. cit. i, 221.

"3 Reg. of Corpus Christi Gild, 93.

“ Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 244.

© Yorks. Chant. Surv. 110. See his will, Richmond
Wills (Surt. Soc.), 204. He was the thirteenth child
and seventh son of Richard, Lord Latimer.

* B. H. Cooke, Early Civic Wills of York, 5.

* Charters, no. 382, 572.

% Tbid.

successors, Abbots Nicholas and Benedict, and
their convent, that when an inmate of the
hospital, leprous or not, died, the body was to be
brought to the monastery to be buried there by
the monks. One of the monks was appointed
master of the hospital, but neither he, nor the
brothers or sisters of the hospital, were to admit
anyone to it except through the abbot, because,
it was said, the original alms came from the
mensa of the abbot and convent. The hospital
had its own chaplain with cure of souls there.
The alms originally granted by Abbot William
to Orm were granted in perpetuity to the
hospital, as well as land near the hospital, called
the Hospital Croft. A monk named Geoffrey
Mansell, who was suspected of leprosy by Abbot
Benedict and certain of the monks, was sent
there and lived at the hospital many years and
died there. He cleared the land at ‘ Helredale,’
now called Spittal Vale, and cultivated it.

Robert de Alneto, who is heard of elsewhere
as the hermit of Hode who received Abbot
Gerald and the convent after they left Calder,
was master of the hospital ; he appealed to Gun-
dreda the wife of Nigel de Albini and mother
of Roger de Mowbray, and she gave to the
hospital of St. Michael 2 bovates of land at
Honeton with a toft, which the monks of
Rievaulx held of the hospital, paying 6s. yearly
rent for it, and Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx, with
his convent, undertook to help the inmates by
giving them yearly, on the feast of St. Martin,
their old vestimenta. During the troublous times
of the reign of Stephen, William, Earl of Albe-
marle, destroyed the vaccary of the monks of
Whitby at Kesbec and their mansiones at
Thornaby ; and Abbot Benedict, fearing other
mischief and knowing the kindliness of the earl
towards the poor and lepers, let the lepers and
brothers of the hospital have their money at
Bilroche (Billery). Earl William spared the
place on account of the lepers. Abbot Richard I
granted to St. Michael’s Hospital and the
brethren a traveller’s corrody, founded in the
monastery. Healso, by Peter Danum, monk
and master of the hospital, granted a place called
‘Le Rigge’ at Helredale, which the brothers
cleared and cultivated; and Walter de Rosels
gave to God and St. Michael and the brothers
of the place a toft and 1 acre of land at
Easington.

St. Michael’s Hospital, being wholly depen-
dent on and managed by the monastery, scarcely
had a separate existence. Its site is still iden-
tified by the name of Spittal Bridge.

Tue Hosprrar oF St. JoHN THE Baprist.—
On 8 January 1320 the king granted to
Robert de Hemyngburgh, king’s clerk, the
custody of the hospital of St. John the Baptist,
Whitby, with writ of aid for the said Robert
directed to the brethren and sisters of the said

334

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

hospital.°® In 1407-8, as the result of an
inquisition, the jurors stated that there was no
hospital of St. John the Baptist of Whitby of
the foundation of the king or his progenitors,”

175. THE HOSPITAL OF ST.
NICHOLAS, YARM

According to Tanner this hospital was founded
by some member of the Brus family before
1185.1” It seems, however, more probable that
the founder, if not Alan de Wilton himself, two
-of whose charters are printed in the AJonasticon,!
was at least a member of that family, and that
members of the Brus family, as chief lords, con-
firmed and added to the grants made by others.

Alan de Wilton (who died in 1230-1)?
granted to God, blessed Mary, blessed Nicholas,
and to the hospital of Yarm and the brothers
there, 12 bovates of land in Hutton-juxta-
Rudby, Upleatham, and Middleton-juxta-Leven,
for the maintenance of three chaplains and
thirteen poor persons in the hospital.

Peter de Brus I (who died 1222)* confirmed
to God, blessed Mary, and the hospital of St.
Nicholas, and the brothers there, the free
multure at all his mills and pasturage for their
cattle which Robert de Brus (the founder of
Guisborough) granted them. Peter de Brus I
also confirmed the grants by one Ailwin, by
Adam de Brus his father, by William de Wilton,
and by Marmaduke de Thweng. He also gave
eight tofts in Yarm, one of which is described as
‘juxta castellarium.’

By a second charter* Alan de Wilton granted
the hospital of St. Nicholas to God, St. Mary,
and St. John the Evangelist, of Healaugh Park,
and the canons there, for the health of his own
soul, and those of Avice his wife, and Mary his
late wife, his brothers, sisters, ancestors, and
successors ; those of Peter de Brus I and Joan
his wife, William the son of Peter de Brus, and
for the good estate of Walter [Gray], Arch-
bishop of York, Matthew, Archdeacon of Cleve-
land ; Thomas, Alan’s brother; Peter de Brus II
and his wife, and William de Tamton and his
wife.

This grant of the hospital by Alan de Wilton
certainly points to him as its founder, and the
mention of the two Peters de Brus is so ex-
pressed as to imply that Peter de Brus and his

His charter here
summarized is no. iv in the Monasticon, vi, 637.
“Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 636, no. ii.

son William were dead, which would limit the
date of this grant of the hospital to Healaugh
Park as between 1222, when Peter de Brus I
died, and 1230, when Alan de Wilton died.

This grant of the hospital was confirmed by
Peter de Brus II,® together with a number of
grants made to it subsequently, it would seem,
to those confirmed by Peter de Brus I. The
Healaugh Chartulary contains copies of several
gifts of land in neighbouring villages.

Upon the gift of the hospital to Healaugh
Park the prior and convent granted the war-
denship® to Nigel de Rungeton’ and Geoffrey,
son of Hugh of Yarm, saving to the convent
the supreme wardenship. Nigel de Rungeton
and Geoffrey were to find a chaplain to celebrate
in the hospital and a clerk to serve him, besides
seven poor persons to be fed and clothed there.
The first witness to this deed is Thomas de
Wilton, the brother and successor of Alan de
Wilton. This, again, points to the hospital
having been of the foundation of that family.

A rental of 2s, at Lackenby, referred to in
the foregoing grant, was given by Hugh de
Lackenby to God, St. Mary, blessed Nicholas,
and the brothers and sisters of the hospital, out
of certain lands (named) in Lackenby for main-
taining a lamp to burn before the great altar in
the church of St. Nicholas of the hospital during
the performance of divine service.®

Some time between 1262 and 1280, when
Ralph de Irton, who was a witness, was Prior of
Guisborough, William de Percy of Kildale
granted to the Prior and convent of Healaugh
Park the chapel of St. Hilda at Kildale with its
endowments, the obligation being that the
canons of Healaugh Park should maintain two
chaplains to serve the chapel. William de
Percy died in 1295 and was succeeded by Ernald
de Percy IV,” who obtained a return of the
gift which William de Percy dudum con-
cessit, and made are-grant by which the prior
and convent were to maintain one chaplain at St.
Hilda’s, and out of that part of the original en-
dowment lying in Crathorne were to maintain a
chaplain at St. Nicholas Hospital, who was to

5 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 637, no. iii.

6 B.M. Egerton Chart. 516.

7 There is an earlier grant (?.c. 1212) by William
son of John de Rungetona to Peter son of Thomas,
his heirs and assigns, of the ‘dominium cura et
custodia hospitalis S$. Nicholai de Jarum’ without
reserve, except the right for himself, his children,
brothers and sisters, to be received into the house if
they should at any time wish. B.M. Egerton Chart.

15.
. ? Healaugh Chartul. fol. 112. The witnesses
are ‘Magistro H. custode hospitalis Sci. Nicholai de
Yarum, Wo. et Rico. capellanis ; Roberto de Sampsone
clerico, et aliis.’

° Healaugh Chartul, fol. 1044.

335

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

celebrate in the chapel for the soul of William
de Percy, his ancestors and heirs, in per-
petuity."

In 1546 the chantry was said to be ‘of the
foundation of the late Erle of Northumberland.’ ?
Francis Edward was the chaplain, the intent
being to say mass in the chapel and pray for the
souls of the founder and all Christian souls.
The stipend was a yearly rent of 106s. 8d. from
the late monastery of Healaugh, and the chapel
a mile from the parish church. In 1548,)
when William Burdon, aged thirty-six, was
chaplain, the same stipend from Healaugh is
mentioned, but the obligation is changed to that
of doing ‘divyne service to the inhabitants
thereabouts being distant from the parishe churche
amyle.’ There was evidently a desire to spare
the chaplaincy and represent its duty as con-
formable with the altered forms of religion.

After the hospital became dependent on the
priory of Healaugh Park one of the canons
appears to have taken charge of it as master,
although not holding that title.’

In the Ministers’ Accounts of Healaugh Park #®
for the year Michaelmas 1535 to Michaelmas
1536, 30s. are accounted as the rent of three
closes in Yarm, called Spittell Closes, in the
tenure of Matthew Metcalfe; 16s. as the rent
of a messuage and garden adjoining in the tenure
of William Oldfield, chaplain, late one of the
canons, with 18d. as the rent of his camera for
the year.

176. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. LEONARD,
YORK

The hospital of St. Leonard, or St. Peter as
it was at first called, appears to have had its
origin in the hospitality shown to the poor by
the Culdees, who, before the Conquest, served

" Healaugh Chartul. fol. 104d.

” Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 119.

® Ibid. 487.

“In 1527 ‘dominus Thomas Revesley canonicus
ibidem’ is returned in Subs. R. bdle. 63, no. 303.
On 8 June 1409 the prior and convent granted to
Brother Richard Roby, canon, their hospital of St.
Nicholas-juxta-Yarm for his life, with all its lands
and rentals (specified), as John Byrkyn and other
canons before him had held them, and Brother
Richard was to do service daily in the hospital chapel
and keep the buildings in Tepair. ‘The archbishop
confirmed the appointment on 15 June following
(York Archiepis. Reg. Bowett, fol. 89). On 8 May
1540 Archbishop Lee instituted Francis Yowarde,
chaplain, to the salary of the perpetual chantry in the
chapel of ‘ Yarom Spitle’ on the nomination of King
Henry VIII, the same being vacant by the death of
the late incumbent (York Archiepis. Reg. Lee, fol.
44). The presentation was in the king’s hands, as
representing the dissolved Priory of Healaugh Park.

* Op. cit. 27-8 Henry VIII, no. 4471.

the cathedral church of York.’ According to
tradition, Athelstan, returning from the battle
of Brunanburh, seeing the large number of poor
folk maintained by the Colidei of St. Peter’s, York,
granted, in 936, a thrave, or twenty sheaves of
corn, from every plough ploughing in the then
extensive diocese of York, for the maintenance
of these poor folk. A small hospital was built
for them on ground belonging to the king, west
of the church, and this endowment of the
thraves, known as the sheaves of St. Peter, or
the Petercorn, though it led to litigation and
disputes in later times, formed the nucleus of the
rich property the hospital gradually acquired.

William the Conqueror, at the request of
Archbishop Thomas, confirmed the gift of the
thraves, which in his charter are called ‘illam
antiquam elemosinam supra qua dictum hospitale
fundatum existit.’”"” The site of the hospital
was changed by William Rufus to other royal
land further west. Stephen constructed a church
dedicated in honour of St. Leonard, and hence-
forward the hospital was known as the hospital
of St. Leonard, although to the last the seal
used bore the figure and name of St. Peter. The
gift of the thraves was confirmed by several
kings, and the popes fulminated the heaviest
censures against those who withheld these ancient
alms.’8

In 1246, on the occasion of a vacancy in
the mastership caused by the death of Hugh de
Gaytington, the Crown claimed the patronage
of the hospital, and an inquiry was held by a
jury of twelve of ‘the older and more discreet
knights’ of the county. They reported” that
in the time of William the Conqueror, after an
ancient war (fost antiquam guerram), the clerks of
the church of St. Peter of York, who at that
time were called ‘ Kelidenses,’ asked the king to
give them a place lying before the gate of the
said church on the west as a site for buildings to
receive and lodge the poor sick and infirm who
at that time were suffering extreme want, lying
by night in the streets. And the king gave that
place to them by his charter and ordered
Geoffrey Baynnard to deliver it to them. Then
they erected buildings and assigned certain
thraves, which they were accustomed to receive
throughout the county, for the support of the
said hospital. King Henry the elder (sene) had a
chaplain and confessor, Paulinus by name, and he

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 607; Drake, Ebor.
332-6, &c. According to the Chartulary of the
Hospital (Cott. MS. Nero, D. iii, fol. 7) the thraves
were given to the minster by Athelstan without
reference to any hospital, were soon afterwards
regranted to the Crown for the purpose of exter-
a oa: wolves and were restored by William I in
1069.

” Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 608.

* Ibid. 609.

* Assize R. 1045, m. 17d.

336

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

asked the dean and chapter to admit him to the
rule of the hospital; and he was admitted and
lived many years as master. During his time
Archbishop Roger abandoned a claim to the
patronage which he had put forward, but after
the death of Paulinus, Archbishop Geoffrey on
his own authority, in the time of King John,
appointed John his chaplain as master, but the
dean and chapter successfully impleaded him and
removed John and made Ralph of Nottingham
master, and after the death of Ralph they, at the
request of Morgan, then provost of Beverley,
appointed Hugh de Gaytington, the master
recently deceased. And no predecessor of the
king ever appointed any master.

A slightly different story was told in 1280
by a mixed jury of twenty-four freemen of the
county, twelve citizens and twelve brethren of
the hospital.” According to this the founder
was William II, who built the chapel of St. Peter
and endowed the chapel with the thraves ; King
Stephen built the church of St. Leonard in the
High Street adjoining and changed the name of
the hospital. King John, following the custom
of his predecessors, appointed Paulinus de Ledes
master and on his death appointed one John.
Two years later, during the war between John
and his barons, the dean and chapter ejected
John and since that time had retained the
appointment of the masters. ‘The then master,
Roger de Malton, had given the dean and
chapter leave to visit and order the hospital at
will, without consulting the brethren. At the
time of this return the house was much im-
poverished, so that the number of the chaplains
had to be reduced.

On 16 December 1293 Archbishop Romanus
wrote to Nicholas de Misterton, deputy of
Walter de Langton, then master of St. Leonard’s,
asking him to admit two poor men, one a chap-
lain and figator ibrorum, to two of the twelve
beds founded by the archbishop’s father. This
Misterton refused to do, but the upshot of the
matter does not appear.”!_ It however, indicates
the early endowment of beds in the hospital by
private benefaction. In 1307 Gilbert de Stapel-
ton,” then master, granted to Jollan de Nevill in
return for an acre of arable land and the advow-
son of the church of Pickhill three beds and the
maintenance of three sick persons in the hospital
infirmary, so that when one of the beds was
vacated by death or otherwise, Jollan de Nevill
and his heirs should nominate a successor.”*

” Cal. Pat. 1334-8, pp. 266-8.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 440.

™ Gilbert de Stapelton was an intruder, who had
been collated to the mastership by Walter de Langton
on his removal from that office in 1308-9. The
king granted the mastership to Walter Reynolds,
Bishop of Worcester, and ordered Stapelton to resign;
Pat. 2 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 17.

* BLM. Add. Chart. 7466.

3 337

On 23 July 1294 Walter de Langton,
master of St. Leonard’s, delivered to the brothers
and sisters of the hospital a series of provisiones et
precepta, which ** may be summarized thus : each
brother, being a chaplain and literatus, was to
have a particular seat and carol or desk in the
cloister. All such chaplains were to rise together
for matins, and to be present at all canonical
hours, and afterwards four brothers, besides the
chaplain celebrating mass, were to be pre-
sent at the mass of the Virgin from be-
ginning to end, and then each was to say his
own mass as appointed by the custos and cellarer.
Hours and masses finished, they were to go to
their seats in the cloister and engage in contem-
plation, and in the devout saying of the seven
penitential psalms, and prayers for the souls of
the kings and other benefactors. When prime
was sounded all were to go into the quire, and
after prime to the chapter-house, the boy thurifer
preceding them, and bearing the tabula. He
was to read the lesson of the Martiloge, and
then the tabula, after which the Ebdomadary
was to say the ‘ Pretiosa est in conspectu domini,’
&c.,and having heard the declamations of faults,
and corrections having been made, all were to
go to the quire and say the Commendation of
Souls. After the hours and the mass of the day
were ended, and the little bell was sounded, all
were to assemble at the door of the refectory and
sit there, and then enter together. A brother
was to read both at dinner (prandium) and at
supper (cena), and they were to beware of sitting
too long at their meals, at the end of each of
which they were to go to the church and say
grace. In the summer, after dinner, they were
to sleep after the manner of other religious, and
after their repose in summer, or after dinner at
other times, were to go to their places in the
cloister and study their books until the first peal
of vespers, and during the first and second peals
of vespers were to say Placebo and Dirige; the
peal finished, they were to begin vespers. After
vespers of the day and of our Lady all were to
enter the cloister and study their books till
supper, and then, the bell sounding, were to go
to supper or collation, after which they were to
go to church and return thanks, and say com-
pline of the day and of the Blessed Virgin.
After compline they were to chant solemnly and
devoutly Sa/ve Regina, or some other anthem of
the glorious Virgin before her altar. Then,
having said their private prayers, either in quire
or cloister till bed time, all were to sleep together
in the dormitory, except the cellarer, who alone
had a private chamber. There was to be no
drinking or eating together after compline.
After this follow directions as to closing the
church doors, and the custody ot the keys.
Secular chaplains and quire boys were to enter
the church by the porch of the Blessed Virgin,

Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 610, no. x.
43

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

which after their entrance and departure was to
be shut, but the conversi were to pass through
the cloister, and enter the church by a door near
the altar of the Holy Cross, and so go to their
stalls. There was to be no brawling or noise or
murmuring at table. Ifa brother was sick, and
could not attend the quire office, he was to have
a special camera assigned him in the dormitory.
The same camera was to be assigned for bleeding
and shaving, but those bled were to dine with
the brethren in the refectory. All ought to be
shaved by a barber at one time, fortnightly. Tf
anyone was guilty of incontinence, or was dis-
obedient, or possessed private property (proprie-
tarius), no one but the master could absolve him,
except in danger of death, and if anyone was
found at death to be a proprietarius he was to
be refused ecclesiastical burial.

All charters and muniments were to be kept
in the treasury under two or three keys by the
custos and clerk of the exchequer, at the sight,
and with the consent of the dean of the cathedral
church. No brother was to wander about into
the kitchen, brewery, bakehouse, &c. Nor were
any to go out of the door of the nave of the
church, except in processions.

An honest place at the lower end of the
church was to be set apart, from one side to the
other, where the sisters could meet and sit.
They were to go out and come in together, and
neither they nor the brothers were to wander
through the hospital court.

With the accession of Edward II in 1307 a
turbulent period in English history began.
Walter de Langton, while conveying the body
of the deceased king towards Westminster, was
arrested and brought as a prisoner to York, and
all the public moneys which he held, as well as
his private means, were seized.”

Walter Reynolds, Bishop of Worcester, was
appointed master in the beginning of 1308-9 in
his place.”® Reynolds was translated to Canter-
bury in 1314,” and Walter de Langton appears
to have been re-appointed,®* but there must have
been some hitch in the matter, for on 12 March
1315 John de Hotham was appointed for
life by the king, with writ de intendendo
for him as keeper directed to the brothers
and sisters of the hospital.?9 However, on
7 August 1316, the king granted restitution to
Walter de Langton of the hospital of St. Leonard,

* See Raine, ¢r4, in « Historic Towns? series.

* Pat. 2 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 17.

* Le Neve, Fasti (ed. Hardy), i, 16.

* Cal. Pat. 1313-17, p. 80.

* Ibid. 260. John de Hotham became Bishop ot
Ely in 1316, and next year gave to the hospital a
coffer or feretory of silver and gold ‘adorned with
precious stones and cunning work, wrought with mar-
vellous skill,’ which the master and brethren agreed
never to alienate ; Cott. MS, Nero, D. iii, fol. 61.

* Cal. Pat. 1313-17, Pp. 526.

which the late king had granted to him for life,
He cannot have held it long again, for on
16 March 1318-19 Robert de Clipston ®! occurs
as master.

In 1339 disputes between the master, John
Giffard, and inmates of the hospital rendered the
appointment of a royal commission necessary,
Giffard complained that the brethren were dis-
obedient and would not allow him to dispose of
the revenues, nor would they render accounts ;
on all these points the brethren acknowledged
that they had been in the wrong. They, on
their side, complained that whereas there ought
to be thirteen chaplain-brethren there were now
only nine; to this it was answered that the original
foundation of William II fixed no number of
chaplains, but a former master, Geoffrey de
Aspale, without the king’s authority fixed the
number at thirteen, which was considered too
large for the present revenues. To the com-
plaint that the lay brethren in charge of the
manors and farms had been replaced by secular
servants, the master replied by promising to make
more lay brethren when suitable persons were
found. The claim of the brethren to elect
their cellarer and receiver was rejected on the
ground that the master was held responsible for
the property of the hospital and ought therefore
to appoint these officers.”

During the latter half of the century serious
irregularities led to regal visitations by the chan-
cellor or royal commissioners, and some ver
elaborate returns are preserved concerning them.
In 1364 Simon Langham, Bishop of Ely and
chancellor, held such a visitation.

His injunctions begin with an exhortation to
unity and obedience. There were to be thirteen
chaplain-vrothers ‘in talari habitu nunc usitato,
non nimis precioso, neque lascivio, nec notabiliter
abjecto,’ having ‘sub capa, capucia cum appen-
diciis longis, ante et retro, que vulgariter dicuntur
scapularia,’ of either black or grey colour, after
the manner of the friars preachers, and they were
to observe the rule of the Austin canons.*

To a considerable extent these injunctions
deal with the religious or quasi-monastic char-
acter of the hospital, and the services in the
church, as to the masses which the chaplains
were to say daily and other offices, the ebdomarii
being directed to act as in collegiate churches. On
a vacancy occurring among the chaplain-brothers
the master was to choose, after examination,
another fit person, with the assent of the brothers,
and after a year’s probation he was to make pro-
fession of obedience, chastity, and renunciation
of property. The conversi were to make like pro-
fession, and that they would serve God, Blessed

* York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 1258.

” Cal. Pat. 1338-40, pp- 266-8.

* Chan. Misc. bdle. 21, no. re

“ ¢Viventes communiter et regulariter ad instar
canonicorum regularum ordinis sancti Augustini.’

338

RELIGIOUS

Mary, and St. Leonard, and the poor according
to the best of their ability. The regular sisters
were to make a similar profession, promising also
to devote their labours to the needs of the sick.
The conversi, who were not sick or otherwise
occupied, were to attend matins, and both they
and the sisters were to hear at least one mass
daily.

None were to confess except to the master or
cellarer. If any brother or sister was openly
defamed of incontinence, proprietorship, perjury,
rebellion, or other excess, punishment was to be
awarded the delinquent in chapter by the master
or cellarer.

A special camera was to be provided in the
house in which offending and_ incorrigible
brothers could be imprisoned. The number of
conversi was to be regulated by the master and
chaplain-brothers as seemed best for the house,
but the ancient number (not specified) was not
to be exceeded.

As the number of the regular sisters exceeded
that which was customary, no woman was to be
received as a sister till the number was reduced
to eight, and that number was to be adhered to.
The sisters were to have their meals in habitaculis,
separate from the brothers, and one of them,
chosen by the master with consent of the
brothers, was to preside over them, direct, and
chastise them. ‘The sisters were not to do work
for sale (non factant operaciones venales), but were
to be busied only with attending to the needs of
the poor, and were to use the customary habit,
not too elaborate, no long supertunics and
mantles, but gowns, that they might more easily
minister to the poor. Nor were they to have
secular serving-maids, from whom sinister sus-
picion might arise.

Lay sisters should under no pretext reside in
the hospital, nor were women to be taken as
boarders.

The brothers were to eat together in the
refectory, quietly, the chaplain-brothers occupy-
ing the upper part, and the conversi the lower.
They were to have two services of food (fercu/a)
daily, and on days that were kept as double
feasts in the quire they were to have a pittance
in addition. On Wednesdays, Fridays, and
Saturdays abstinence from meat was enjoined in
the refectory.

If any brother or sister were openly convicted
super lapsu carnis, such a one, for the first occa-
sion, was to be sharply punished by the master
or cellarer, and if afterwards he or she committed
such an offence a penance was to be undergone
till signs of contrition merited remission.

Each chaplain-brother was to have yearly
2 marks for his clothes, his shoes from the
tannery, and 18d. for his shirts; and all the
brothers in common 55. for gloves, and each
sister gs, for necessaries.

Provision was made for the due rule of the

HOUSES

house, and to the master was committed its full
custody. The master was to provide vestments,
books, chalices, and other necessaries.

Thirty poor folk (seculars and others) who
were called custumarti were to have the accus-
tomed alms daily at the hospital gate, besides
prisoners in the city of York and lepers in the
ancient leper houses of the city ; and in addition
there were always to be in the house the cus-
tomary number of sick poor folk, namely 206,
and this number was to be carefully maintained.
The sick were not to be dismissed until con-
valescent and able to work, when others were
to take their place. Any who recovered and
were allowed to remain were to be set to work,
and were not to eat the bread of idleness.

One or two chaplains (secular or regular)
were to be appointed by the cellarer, with advice
of the master, to hear the confessions of the poor,
and to administer the sacrament when necessary ;
and these chaplains were to go round the house
at least once a night, speaking salutary and con-
solatory words to the sick, and by pious exhorta-
tions persuading them to confession, and penitence
for their sins. ‘The master, too, was to appoint
the sisters in turns to minister to the sick, and
they were to give them food and drink as needed,
cover them, wash them, and lead them about as
human necessity required, and if any of them
needed the viaticum, or sought confession, the
sisters were at once to inform the priests.

The sick received into the house were to have
the accustomed livery of food, but when any
were too sick for the common livery they were
to be provided for out of the money given or
bequeathed for the pittance of the poor, accord-
ing to the ordinance of the master. “There were
not to be more secular priests as cantorists in the
house than necessary. “The janitor of the great
gate and the ostiarius in the farmery (fermorie) *®
were to be circumspect in their offices, and no
persons, except on proper business at lawful
hours, were to be admitted.

If they detected any person secretly or openly
taking things away, they were to inform the
master.

When the master resided in the house he was
to do so honourably, but not at too great a charge
to the house. He might have a secular chaplain,
two domsels, and other necessary servants and
men, and eight horses at the expense of the
house.

The master was to see that those brothers
who were apt and wished to study should attend
the theological schools in York after they had
celebrated divine service, and there was to be a
building, divided into thirteen studies (studia),
where they could study Holy Scripture.

The demesne and other lands were to be
properly cultivated, and proper stocks kept in the

35 Elsewhere ‘infermaria’ is the word used.

339

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

manors. The corn of the manors was to be
faithfully gathered in the autumn, thrashed, and
sold at the most favourable opportunity, and the
thraves were to be sold at a fair price, with good
security of payment for them, The master or
his substitute was to go round the manors yearly,
soon after Easter, and make an estimate, and as
soon after Michaelmas as possible the final
accounts were to be audited. Long directions
follow as to the accounts and property of the
hospital.

As the property scarcely sufficed for the actual
needs of the hospital, all were enjoined to avoid
unnecessary expenses. [he master under pain
of deprivation, and the brethren under pain of
ejection, were forbidden to sell or pledge the
books, chalices, or vestments of the church, or
sell corrodies or otherwise entangle the affairs of
the house. They were not to grant pensions or
annual robes to persons, except such as were
needed for the house, nor were they to destroy
the large oak trees, or give them away without
special royal licence.

The almoner was to collect all that pertained
to his office, and distribute it faithfully, as he
believed to be best pleasing to God. The
common seal was to be kept under three keys,
one of which the master was to have, a second
the cellarer, and the third was to be kept by a
confrater chaplain, chosen for that purpose, and
no writings of obligation or acquittance were to
be sealed with the private seal of the master.

The expenses of the house were to be set
down daily by the different officials, and carefully
examined by the master’s clerk.

A building underneath the infirmary, called
‘Barnhous,’ was to be prepared for nursing
exposed infants, orphans, and other indigent
children, for whose bringing up a sister was to
be appointed, and two cows, or one at least, as
their number required, and there was to be a
good chimney lest the smoke should harm the
children.

There were to be two or three common
horses at the house for the use of the brethren
or others employed in its business, but the
Servants at the manors were not to have horses,
or men-servants, except when needed for the
use of the house, and no women were to be
allowed at the manors for fear of scandal. Other
directions follow, and the injunctions were rati-
fied and accepted by the master, Richard de
Ravenser, and the brothers and sisters on
2 March 1365-6.

A return was made in 1376-7 * of the state
of the hospital. Some of the figures are unfor-
tunately illegible, but the collection travarum de
Petercorne amounted to £425 195. 8d., as against
£320 at the last previous visitation. There
were only eight chaplain-brothers on that occa-

* Chan. Misc. bdle. 20, file I, no. 6.

sion, but the number returned at the new in-
quisition is lost. The sisters, however, numbered
eight, whereas there was a less (illegible) number
previously. There were thirty secular choristers,
and 199 ‘cremetts,’.** instead of 180 previously ;
seventeen corrodarit were in receipt of allowances, as
against ten on the former occasion. Of these, ten
received a livery as those of brothers, ‘some’ as
those of sisters, and three as those of servants.

For the brothers, sisters, corrodarii, and poor
coming daily to the hospital, besides the servants,
4 quarters of corn were needed weekly, and for
the poor in the infirmary 4 quarters and 2 bushels
weekly, At the last visitation 3 quarters 2 bushels
of corn were expended for the poor, but a cer-
tain Hugh de Miton had given lands and tene-
ments of the annual value of 25 marks for the
poor of the infirmary every Thursday, for a loaf
called ‘ miche,’ whereas previously the poor had
had no bread on that day.

Other accounts follow, including those for
mutton, pork, ‘scraffish,’ herrings, &c. The
vestura of the brothers and sisters cost £19 155,
a year. Wine for celebrations, wax, incense,
and repair and purchase of vestments, books,
and other ecclesiastical ornaments came to
£8 18s. 11d.; oil for the lamps of the hospital
church, and in the infirmary and dormitory
£6 15s. 8d. The commissioners reported that
the defects of the hospital church, the tower,
and the dormitory should be repaired, and also
those of the churches and manors of the hospital,
and that no less than £1,000 would be required
for this. The present master had, they said,
repaired and roofed half of the church, cloister,
and dormitory, and a portion of the infirmary of
the poor with lead, and the campanile with
boards, and placed a large bell in it, besides other
repairs to two kitchens and the bakehouse and
other buildings of the hospital and its manors,
spending £1,116 16s. 24d., and repairs were
still needed in the manors which would cost not
less than £100. Dikes and banks of the
Humber and Ouse needed repair, to the extent
of £40. They had examined the master,
brothers, and sisters, and found that the hospital
owed Richard Ravenser its master £450.

On 11 December 1398” Richard II issued a
commission, owing to reports as to grave defects
in the hospital, due to the misgovernment of the
masters and their servants, and in consequence
of disputes between the master, William de
Botheby, and various persons attached to the
hospital.

The report of the jurors revealed an exceed-
ingly bad state of affairs. They stated that at
the time that William de Botheby first became
master discretus vir Thomas Thurkill, a citizen
of York, and deputy for Robert Bayce, Botheby’s
immediate predecessor, had ruled the hospital

*= Cremetts, or eremetts (j.¢. hermits) were sick
brethren. *” Chan. Misc. bdle. 20, no. 3.

340

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

from St. Leonard’s day (6 November) 1390, to
the nativity of St. John Baptist (21 June) next
following, and in that period had relieved the
hospital of many excessive debts, to the amount
of more than £100.

They also reported that William de Botheby
found in the hospital a large provision of grain,
and the hospital would have been freed of all its
debts in three years if Thomas Thurkill had
remained in office, but Botheby expelled him
and in a short time began to sell large corrodies
in a great number. (Then follow some of the
names of persons to whom they were sold.) He
also sold several sacerdotal corrodies, even to
women, which ought to have been given
gratuitously to impotent priests, to pray for the
souls of the kings and benefactors of the hospital.
He also sold the liveries of ‘cremetts’ and gave
them to esquires, merchants, and well-to-do
clerks, contrary to the ordinance of the hospital,
and defrauding the alms of the king, and did not
cease till he had received more than £2,453
by this sale of corrodies, and the jurors found the
hospital £220 more in debt than when Botheby
became master.

The ministers of the Earl of Northumber-
land had the church of Pickhill, annually worth
80 marks, for three years, for debts owed by
Botheby to the earl, before he became master,
and so the hospital lost 240 marks. Botheby
owed a certain Thomas de Skelton, chaplain,
£21, his private and personal debt, and he took
the said church of Pickhill to farm for £50,
paying Botheby £40, of which sum £21 was
allowed to Skelton.

Botheby also sold and gave several large
green oaks in Acomb and Beningbrough to
various persons (who are named, including the
Prioress of Monkton) to such an extent that the
park of Beningbrough was all but destroyed, and
part of the wood of Acomb was actually de-
stroyed,

Botheby also sold the zativi in the vill of
Broomfleet, remitted the services of the tenants
in Broomfleet, and pawned for his own debts
chalices, vestments and other church ornaments,
as well as the hospital jewels, including a tablet
of gold, presented to the hospital by Dom.
Nicholas Slake.

Botheby never was well disposed for the rule
of the hospital, for all his time the hospital went
from bad to worse, owing to his evil government,
and unless he were quickly removed from office
the hospital would be finally and totally de-
stroyed.

Then follow accounts of the delinquencies of
bailiffs and foresters appointed by Botheby, and
the jurors end by stating that there were con-
tinual quarrels between Botheby and the brothers,
whe would not agree to his sales of corrodies and
alienations, to which by fear the majority were
driven to consent.

In another document the jurors reported that
William de Botheby entered into office on the
Nativity of St. John Baptist 1391, on the resig=
nation of Robert Bays, and by his unhappy rule
governed the hospital seven years and a half
ending on 16 January 1399.

Botheby, however bad his rule had been, was
not so very much worse than some of his im-
mediate predecessors, and possibly because the
return made in 1398 had laid all the blame on
him, a fresh commission was issued by Henry IV
on 16 November 1399 to John de Neuton,
treasurer of York cathedral church, William
Cawod, Alan Newerk, William Selby, and
Thomas Thurkill (the latter of whom was pre-
viously reported to have managed the hospital
affairs to its great advantage as deputy master for
six months) to visit, and report on the hospital.
The long report of the commission is dated the
last day of May 1402.

In the first place the commissioners reported
that in the time of William de Botheby a sudden
fire had broken out, which had consumed the
wooden campanile of the church, and with it
three noble bells. That Botheby after this had
begun to build a stone tower at the south end of
the hospital church, and that more than £200
would be needed to finish it. They also re-
ported very many defects in the lead roof of the
church, and in the roof of the infirmary house
of the poor folk and the dormitory of the brothers,
as well as in other buildings within the hospital
and in its manors and granges, and in the rent-
able houses of the hospital, in and outside the
city, and these defects occurred chiefly during
the masterships of William de Botheby, and
Nicholas Slake and Robert Bayce his predecessors,
and £200 would not suffice for them.

They also reported that under these three
masters the foundation alms of the hospital had
been for the most part pilfered. Three silver-
gilt chalices had been pledged by Botheby to
Mr. William de Feriby, Archdeacon of the East
Riding, for £201 for the requirements of the
hospital, and a gold tabernacle given to St.
Leonard’s church by Nicholas Slake had been
pledged to William Seler, goldsmith of York, by
Botheby for 10 marks, and the money had been
applied to his personal use.

They reported numerous instances of waste
and embezzlement of lands, tenements and stock,
and also stated that Nicholas Slake lived in the
hospital cum tota sua familia at its cost for three-
quarters of a year, and received in his time,
beyond his expenses, over £200. Robert Bayce
did likewise, and had more than 100 marks, and
William de Botheby spent more than seven con-
secutive years in the hospital with his suite,
spending more than 200 marks a year, and

38 Pat. 1 Hen. IV, pt. iv, m. 30.
89 Chan. Misc. bdle. 20, file 3, no. 13.

341

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

further received for his own use, from corrodies,
&c., which he sold, no less than £1,171. Many
other grave irregularities as to the collection of
the thraves and other matters were reported
against Botheby.

There were sixteen major and minor corrodies
granted in the time of Richard de Ravenser,
involving an annual payment of £74 19s. 11d.,
but for these the hospital had duly received lands
and rents in York, besides money. Nicholas
Slake and his /ocum tenens had sold six corrodies
and twenty-two sacerdotal liveries in the in-
firmary of the poor folk, contrary to the ordin-
ance of the hospital, for £466 2s. 8d., which
was spent for the master and hospital. He had
given his cantarist the office of janitor, worth
100s. a year, without anything received in
return for the hospital, and had otherwise
injured the hospital, and there was an annual
charge payable of £57 12s. Unlike Ravenser
he had only received money, which was ex-
pended and gone, in return for the corrodies,
&c., sold by him.

Robert Bayce, his successor, had sold two
great corrodies, and eight sacerdotal and ‘cre-
mettal’ liveries, contrary to the ordinance, for
£184 6s. 8d., in part for his own private use,
and the money had been spent, the hospital
having to pay £22 7s. 6d. a year in conse-
quence.

William de Botheby had sold thirty-six corro-
dies, and had received £1,836 12s., chiefly for
his own private use. He also sold forty-two
sacerdotal liveries in the infirmary of the poor
for £550 75. for the use of the hospital and his
own private use. He received £73 65. 8d. for
two sisters who were admitted to their habit,
{20 of which went to his own use. A number
of other misappropriations were charged against
him in the report, and the hospital was found by
the commissioners to be under an annual obliga-
tion to pay noless than £231 65. 54d. for pen-
sions, liveries, and corrodies, &c., which he had
improperly sold.

William de Feriby, who succeeded Botheby,
was little better. His brother got a corrody of
the value of 100s. a year for life, and gave
nothing in return for it. ‘The commissioners
found the annual obligation of the hospital for
corrodies, &c., to be £386 55. 10$d., and this
was more than £300 a year in excess of the
endowments of the hospital for such a purpose.

The commissioners found that the hospital
owed £543 125. 9d., debts incurred by Slake,
Bayce, and especially by Botheby. They re-
ported that William de Waltham, the then
master, had bought up seven corrodies, &c., of
the annual charge to the hospital of £32, and
that he was striving, as far as he could, to main-
tain the hospital to the glory of God.

When appointing the commissioners, on
16 November 1399, the king granted his pro-

tection for the master, William de Waltham, and
the brethren, and ordered that the payments of
corrodies should cease, except those to hermits
and poor persons residing in the hospital, until
the king should make ordinances for the estate
of the hospital.”

On 18 February 1399-1400 a commission
was issued to inquire into the collection of the
thraves,#! at the request of the master and
brethren. The thraves were due from every
plough ploughing in the counties of York, Cum-
berland, Westmorland, and Lancashire, but the
report deals only with those in Yorkshire. It is
a long detailed account of the failure to pay the
thraves. The delinquents’ names, what they
had withheld, and for how long a time, are fully
set out, and it is of interest to note that the
clergy were quite as remiss in their payments
as the laymen; for instance, the Abbot of
St. Agatha (Easby) was seven years in arrear,
the Abbot of Coverham was four years in arrear,
the Abbot of Meaux no less than twenty years
in arrear ; and so in like manner the parochial
clergy and layfolk. The return is entered on a
skin 2 ft. 3in. by 1 ft. 7in., and contains a pro-
portionally long catalogue of defaulters. Many
disputes and troubles arose in regard to what
was a considerable burden on agriculture in
the demand for the thraves. Occasionally
agreements were entered into as to them, and
the collection of the thraves was farmed out to
local people as being, perhaps, the only way of
recovering this charge on the land. There is
an agreement, dated 8 June 1420, between
the master and brothers of St. Leonard’s and the
Prioress and convent of Yedingham, ending a
dispute between the parties regarding the thraves
due from the nuns.

The mastership had been held by two bishops
at the end of the 13th and beginning of the
next century. It was destined at a later period
to be held by an Archbishop of York together
with his see. On 14 January 1456 Henry VI
appointed George Nevill, clerk, to the mastership
vice William Scrope, resigned.* In 1458 he was

© Cal. Pat. 1399-1401, p. 131. Much about
the same time (24 July 1400) the king granted pro-
tection for a ship called ‘Clement,’ which William de
Waltham, the master of St. Leonard’s, had freighted
at London with divers victuals, &c., for his household
at St. Leonard’s (ibid. 266).

“ Exch. K.R. Eccl. Com. iti, no. 43.

© Tt was possibly dislike of this demand for thraves
which led to attacks on the hospital during the unrest
of 1382 (Cal. Pat. 1381-5, pp. 137, 201), and the
same cause, accentuated by the misappropriation of
the hospital funds, led to rebellion in 14.69 (see ‘ Politi-
cal Hist.’), so that in September of that year Ed-
ward IV promised to abolish the Petercorn, recom-
pensing the hospital in some other way (Cott. MS.
Nero, D. iii, fol. 215).

“ Convent. Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 1209.

“ Cott. MS. Vesp. xiii, fol. 60.

342

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

consecrated Bishop of Exeter, and on 15 March
1464-5 was translated to York. He would
appear to have held the mastership during that
period, for there is an indenture dated 9 Novem-
ber 1465,*° between Edward IV and George,
Archbishop of York, master of the hospital of
St. Leonard of York, by which the king
restricted the right of the brethren to take wood
in the Forest of Galtres, and in compensation
for this granted the hospital all his water-mills
by York Castle called ‘Castelmylnes.’ #* It was
during the mastership of Scrope, on 17 March
1461, that Henry VI and his son Edward, with
the Dukes of Exeter and Somerset, paid a visit
in state to the hospital, made their offerings at
the high altar, and heard vespers.*”

Not long before its dissolution the hospital
received from Henry VIII a grant of exemption
from the payment of al] tenths and subsidies.
The grant, dated 12 November 1515,‘° is some-
what unusually effusive in its proclamation of
the king’s religious devotion. It begins by a
record that St. Leonard’s was of royal foundation
by the king’s ancestors, who had richly endowed
it, but that these benefactions had been diminished
and alienated, and the church and other buildings
were fallen down and ruined. The king for
the help of the master and brothers, and on
account of the singular devotion which he had
towards the Holy and undivided Trinity, and
the most glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God,
and the glorious confessor St. Leonard, and that
the master and brothers might pray for the good
estate of himself, and of his most dear consort,
Katherine, Queen of England, while they lived,
and when deceased, for their souls, and those of
their forefathers, made the grant above named
to John Constable, the master, and the brothers
and their successors for ever. What particular
misfortune, if any, had just at this period over-
taken the hospital is not apparent.

There is a paper,*? much decayed, relating to
the pensions allotted to the master, brethren, and
sisters of St. Leonard’s on 16 July 1540. It
proceeds ‘Firste the Mr. there Mr. Magnus
shall have the same howse and his dwellyng
therin during his lyffe, excepte such howses and
buyldinges therunto adioynyng as shall please
the kinges majestie to deface or pluck downe.’
He was also to have for ‘life terme’ the Grange

* Anct. D. (P.R.O.), A. 706.

“ There is a lease (7 Oct. 1 530) of their ‘ watter
mylnes vnder the castel] of Yorke and one Wyndmyln
in Heslyngton ffeildes called Stublowe myln’ for
twenty-one years at a yearly rent of £iz for the
water-mills, and 40s. for the windmill from Thomas
Magnus and the brethren of St. Leonard’s to Guy
Nelson of York, miller ; Convent. Leases, Yorks.
(P.R.O.), no. 1200.

* Chartul. (Cott. MS. Nero, D. iii), fol. 215.

“ Pat. 7 Hen. VIII, pt. ili, m. 3.

Suppression P. (P.R.O.) iv, fol. 62

of Beningbrough, and the parsonage of Newton,
the latter valued at £26 135. 4d., with the yearly
sum of £73 6s. 8d. in satisfaction of his pension
of £100. Also for his fuel seventy loads of
wood and three ‘boulkes’ of turves. Four of
the brothers each received £5 ; three ‘conductes’
received £4 each, and four sisters £3 65. 84.
each. Then under ‘Poor Bedfolkes [of] the
said late [hospital]’ is an imperfect entry:
“Itm the pore bedefolkes called eremites .. .
bedrydden and such as be verye old bodies
whose yerlie almes every one of th{em] whiche
wee have assigned to every . . . their lyffes to
be paid by the... Schyre by vertue of a
warran . . . [the remainder is lost].

According to the AZonasticon ® the full comple-
ment of the establishment of St. Leonard’s com-
prised a master or warden, thirteen brethren,
four secular priests, eight sisters, thirty choristers,
two schoolmasters, 206 beadmen, and six servi-
tors, but these numbers varied from time to
time. The master, thirteen chaplain-brothers, and
eight sisters with a number of conversi, besides
the sick folk (or ‘cremetts’ as they were fre-
quently called) appear to have formed the estab-
lishment in 1364.7

The revenues varied very much indeed, and
if returns are to be trusted the hospital had been
much impoverished by the 16th century, when
the Valor Ecclesiasticus only shows a clear income
of £309 2s. 11}d., or less than a third of that
in 1280, not even allowing for the enhanced
value of money.

The hospital fell with the monasteries, and
was surrendered on 1 December 1540 by
Thomas Magnus.®

Masters oF St. Lronarp’s HosPira

Robert, occurs 1148, 1156 #

Suane, occurs 1173,” c. 1184—5 %8

Paulinus de Ledes,*” occurs 1199,°8 1200 ©

John, occurs 1203-4, 1204 #

Ralph de Notyngham, appointed 1203,*? oc-
curs 1209 ®

Hugh de Gaytington, occurs 1217-41," died
c. 1245 8

” Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 607.

* Chan. Misc. bdle. 21, no. 4.

” Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 17-18,

% L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (2), 623.

* Chartul. (Cott. MS. Nero, D. il), fol. 36.

Ibid. * Harl. Chart. 83 C, fol. 38.

* Cal. Pat. 1334-8, p. 267.

® Easby Chartul. (Egerton MS. 2827), fol. 254 4,
as a contemporary of Hamo, Abbot of Byland.

° Yorks. Fines, Fohn (Surt. Soc.), 81.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 17:

” Hist. of Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 105.

“ Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 245.

@ See above for account of the appointment of this
master and his three predecessors,

343

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

William, occurs 1246 ©

Robert, occurs 1252 °”

Robert de Saham, occurs 1262 ©

Thomas de Gaytinton,® occurs 1267,” re-
signed 12767

Roger de Malton, succeeded 1276,” occurs
1280 %

Geoffrey de Aspehale, occurs 1281,” 1286 7°

James de Hispania,’* occurs 1290, resigned
1399"
Waltes de Langton, Bishop of Coventry and
Lichfield, occurs 1294, ejected 1307”
Gilbert de Stapelton, appointed 1307,*° ejected
1308 ®

Walter Reynolds, Bishop of Worcester, ap-
pointed 1308-9," resigned on translation
to Canterbury, 1314

Walter de Langton, reappointed 1314

John de Hotham, appointed 12 March
1315-16

Walter de Langton, restored 7 August 1316 *

Robert de Clipston, appointed 30 Jan. 1318,°”
displaced 11 Aug. 13188

John Walewayn, appointed 1318 ®

Robert de Baldok, succeeded July 1326 ™

7 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 245.

® Chartul. fol. 16.

® Baildon, loc. cit.

” Chartul. fol. 54.

" Archbp. Giffard’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.) 257.
tered the order of Friars Minor.

™ Ibid. 257-8.

™ Cal. Pat. 1334-8, p. 268.

™ Chart. R. g Edw. I, no. 74.

™ York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 75. The
mastership was vacant next year (Ca/. Pat. 1281-92,
p. 271.)

7 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 246. He was a nephew
of Queen Eleanor, but illegitimate, and as a layman
had obtained several benefices, for which irregularities
he obtained papal dispensation (Cal. of Papal Letters,
li, 12).

7 Cal. Pat. 1292-1301, p. 15.

He en-

78 Ibid. ” Tbid. 1307-13, p. 96.
© Tbid. 2. % Tbid. 96.

® Ibid. S Ibid. 1313-17, p. 80.
* Ibid. * Ibid. 260, 301.
Tbid. 526.

7 Robert de Clipston was appointed for life on
24 Feb. 1318 (Cal. Pat.1317-21, pp. 75,105). After-
wards, on the procuration of Hugh le Despenser, junr.,
the king appointed Master John Walewayn, and after
his death Master Robert de Baldok, although Robert
Clipston was alive. He subsequently petitioned
Edward ITI for restitution, at which time John Giffard
held it. Giffard stated that Edward II on 11 Aug.
1318 revoked the grant to Clipston, and appointed
Walewayn and afterwards Baldok, and on his death
John Giffard on 14 Nov. 1326, which matter was
referred to the judges, who decided in favour of
Giffard. Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 248.

® Cal. Pat. 1317-21, p. 197.

® Ibid.

John Giffard, appointed Dec. 1326,*' occurs
1348”

Thomas Brembre, appointed 1349," occurs
1361"

Richard de Ravenser, occurs 1364," 1384”

Nicholas Slacke, appointed 1386”

Robert Bays or Bayce, succeeded 15 Jan.
1390," resigned 1391

William de Botheby, succeeded 8 June 1391,!”
resigned 16 Jan. 1399}

William de Ferryby, succeeded 21 Jan. 13998

William de Waltham, appointed 15 Sept.
1399,° occurs 1407 4

William de Ferryby, appointed 1409,° died
1415°

Robert Fitz Hugh, appointed 1415,’ occurs
14288

William Scrope, LL.B., appointed 1431,°
occurs 1435,!° resigned 14563

George Nevill, succeeded 1456, occurs as
Archbishop of York and master of the
hospital, 1465 %

William Eure, Archdeacon of Salisbury, ap-
pointed 1474,"4 resigned 14773

George Fitz Hugh, appointed 1477," resigned
14897

John Constable, appointed 1489, died 1528

Thomas Wynter, appointed 1528,” resigned
15297

Thomas Magnus, appointed 1529 #

* Ibid. 842.

* Ibid. 1348-50, p. 207,

% Ibid. 368.

“ Ibid. 1461-7, p. 248.

* Chan. Misc. bdle.:24, no. 4.

* Cal. Pat. 1381-5, p. 366; Alan Hevede was
acting as ‘custos” in 1381 ; Chartul. fol. 118.

” Cal. Pat. 1385-9, p. 158.

* Ibid. 1388-92, p. 172.

* Ibid. 428.

'Chan. Misc. bdle. 20, file 3, no. 1.

* Pat. 22 Ric. II, m. 23.

® Cal. Pat. 1396-9, p. 595.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 245.

® Cal. Pat. 1408-13, p. 88.

® Ibid. 1413-16, p. 283.

* Ibid. 1422-9, p. 494.

° Cal. Pat. 1429-36, p. 183.

Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 245.

" Cal. Pat. 1452-61, p. 2773; Cott. MS. Vesp.
xiii, fol. 60.

” Cal. Pat. 1452-61, p. 277.

® Anct. D. (P.R.O.), A 706.

“ Cal. Pat. 1467-77, p. 420.

* Ibid. 1476-85, p. 54.

Ibid.

8 Ibid.
” Mat. for Hist. of Reign of Hen. VII (Rolls Ser.),
il, 423. 18 Thid.

* L. and P. Hen. VIII, iv (2), 4514; John Con-
stable was Dean of Lincoln.

* Ibid. 4526. Thomas Wynter was son of Car-
dinal Wolsey.

* Ibid. ™ Tbid.

344

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

The r1th-century seal * is a vesica, 2Z in. by
1Zin., with a figure of St. Peter standing with
his keys and blessing. The legend is :—

+ sIGILL’ HOSPITAL’ sCI PETRI EBORACI

A 13th-century seal** of the official of the
exchequer of the hospital is a vesica, 2}in. by
1Zin., showing St. Leonard standing and hold-
ing crozier and book. To his left hand is a
shield of England. Below is the official kneel-
ing. ‘The legend is :—

s’ OFFICIL SCACCAR’ HOSP’ sCl LEONARD’ EBOR’

177. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY
BOOTHAM, YORK

This hospital was founded by Robert de Pi-
keryng, Dean of York. The original intention
was to found a chantry in a chapel of St. Mary,
which Pikeryng intended to build for divine
worship at Bootham, by York, where the Car-
melite prior and friars formerly dwelt, and for
that purpose he obtained licence from Edward II,
dated 28 January 1315, to endow the chantry.”

The chantry was enlarged in 1318 into a
hospital for six aged and infirm chaplains, and
Robert de Pikeryng further endowed it with the
church of Stillingfleet,”® a vicarage being ordained
in the church in 1330.27 The dues from the
hospital to the vicar of Stillingfleet were com-
plained of as too burdensome by John Ashfordby,
the master, and Archbishop Kemp issued a com-
mission to inquire into the matter.% In 1452
there was an inquiry as to the patronage of the
hospital.” The jurors stated that Richard
Egglesfeld, esquire, and Elizabeth his wife had
presented Marmaduke Constable, clerk, on
24 July 1452, to the office of custos, vacant by
the death of John Ashfordby the last custos, on
the 12th of that month ; that William Eure, kt.,
had presented Ashfordby by the right and title
of Isabella, the eldest daughter of Robert le Bruse,
the patron while he lived; and that Richard
Egglesfeld and Elizabeth his wife, the second
daughter of Robert le Bruse, were then the true
patrons. Marmaduke Constable was therefore
instituted on 27 July.*°

For some reason William Eure, kt., in Sep-
tember 1483*! granted the advowson of the

® Cat. of Seals B.M. 4404, Add. Chart. 7466.

* Thid. 4406, xxv, 44.

* Cal. Pat. 1313-17, p. 213. He had previously
(20 Sept. 1314) obtained licence for the alienation to
him in mortmain by the Carmelites of York of land
in Bootham upon which they at one time dwelt. |The
grace was granted for 200 masses to be celebrated in
consideration thereof. Pat. 8 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 21.

* Cal. Pat. 1317-21, pp. 259-60.

*’ York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 252.

* Ibid. Kemp, fol. 24.

® Thid. fol. 4624.

*! Ibid. Rotherham, i, fol. 39.

5° Ibid.

hospital of the Blessed Mary ‘in le Horsfair,’
of which he was patron, to Queen Anne, con-
sort of Richard III, who presented Dom. William
Cerffe, monk of Meaux, to the mastership, vacant
by the death of William Eure. On 22 February
1486 * Sir William Eure exercised his patronage
by appointing Robert Bothe, LL.D., to the
mastership, vacant by the cession of Brother
William Cerffe, to whom a yearly pension of
20 marks was assigned. ‘The hospital appar-
ently formed a shelter for blind priests, among
others,®8

On 4 January 1535 W. Frankelyn, priest,
wrote to Cromwell ® that an endeavour had
been made to discover the titles of the hospital
of our Lady in Bootham, called the Horsefair,
in vain. The archbishops’ registers had then
been searched, and the names of Brus, Nevill,
Pykering, Eure, Marshall, and Egglesfeld were
found among those who had presented as founders,
but by what title could not be said. In 1556
it was reported of ‘thospitall of our Ladie in
Bowthome called Horse Faire’ that ‘the same
standith as yet not dissolved, and John Golding,
clerk, is master of the same, and the goods
therof was not taiken awaie then as Sir Thomas
Leder and Sir Water (sic) Langcaster, being
brethren of the same hospitall, haith declared
unto us, lijs. jd.’

Masters

Richard de Grymston, occurs 1318 *

Hugh called Walgh de Pykering, priest,
appointed 13 August 1330,” resigned

Richard de Killum, succeeded 25 July 1331 *

John Pulhore, resigned 1338 *

Walter de Harpham,“ succeeded 1338,"
exchanged 1347 #

John de Ellerker, 1347 *

Robert Worschipp, succeeded 17 June 1349“

Robert de Boxeby, 31 March 1360,* died

37 Ibid. fol. 122.

* Will of Thomas de Howm (1406) ‘pauperibus
capellanis cecis del Horsfaire in suburbiis Ebor’ ;
B. H. Cooke, Some Early Civic Wills of York, 41.

* 1. and P. Hen. VIII, viii, 13. In 26 Hen. VIII
the hospital was valued at £37 gross, and {11 65. 8d.
clear, Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 782.

% Invent. of Ch. Goods, Yorks. (Surt. Soc.), 113.

8 Cal. Pat. 1317-21, p. 259.

7 York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 183.

%8 Tbid. fol. 184.

% Tbid. fol. 216.

“© He had licence, 10 Feb. 1342-3, to reside on
his benefice of Middleton, diocese of York. Ibid.
Zouch, slip between fol. 153 and 154.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 216.

® Thid.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 304.

3 345 44

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

William de Donyngton,* succeeded 5 August
1369," resigned

Walter Coupland, succeeded 27 September
1412,*8 resigned

Thomas Petlyng, succeeded 11 November
1413," exchanged 1416 ®

William Crosse, canon of Lincoln, 1 April
1416,°) resigned

Robert Frend, sub-deacon, succeeded 15 May
1421,°? resigned

Marmaduke Lumley, LL.B., prebendary
of Osmotherley, succeeded 12 December
1424,°° became Bishop of Carlisle 1430

Robert Gamyll, priest, succeeded 8 August
1430 *

John Ashfordby, died 1452 %

Marmaduke Constable, succeeded 27 July
1452,°8 died

William Eure, succeeded 1453 7

William Cerffe, monk of Meaux, succeeded
18 September 1483," resigned

Robert Bothe, LL.D., succeeded 22 February
1486-7,°° died

Simon Senous, succeeded 2 January 1496-7,"
resigned

Martin Colyns, Dec.
2 October 1500, died

John Withers, A.M., succeeded 5 May 1509,"
died

Thomas Marcer, succeeded 20 August 1536

John Golding, occurs 1556 ®

Dec. D., succeeded

succeeded

D.,

178. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. NICHO-
LAS, YORK

This, one of the more important of the York
hospitals, stood outside Walmgate Bar, the
hospital church being also parochial. Richard
de Derfeld, one of its chaplains, at an inquisi-
tion in 1291, stated that he had been told that
it was built on land given by Stephen the [first]

“ Licence for absence to William de Donyngton,
11 Nov. 1371, master of the hospital of St. Mary de
Boutham (York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 1614).
On 14 Oct. 1412, after having served the hospital,
feeble and on the bed of death, he was assigned a
pension of £8 135. 42.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 153.

“ Ibid. Bowett, fol. 24,

5! Tbid. * Ibid. fol. 1384.
Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 370.

* Tbid. Kemp, fol. 178.

* Ibid. W. Booth, fol. 375.

* Tbid. Rotherham, i, fol. 390.

* Thid. fol. 122. © Tbid. fol. 123.
% Ibid. fol. 952. ® Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 5014,
* Ibid. Bainbridge, fol. 76. Ibid, Lee, fol. 67.

Invent. Ch. Goods, Yorks. (Surt. Soc.), 1 13.
* Chan. Misc. bdle. 20, no. I, file 13.

Abbot of St. Mary’s. If so, and there seems no
reason to reject the statement, the foundation
must have taken place at some period between
1088 and 1112.8

At an inquiry held on Wednesday before
Michaelmas 1291 the jurors reported on their
oath that thirty years before the inquiry, in the
time of King Henry III; there was a certain
master, Thomas de Langetoft, and other chap.
lains serving God and the church of the said
house, who had as their habit black capes with
surplices, both in church and quire, and that in
the time of the said master there were three
lepers, and thirty-eight brethren and_ sisters.
The brethren wore tunics and scapulars of
russet with hoods of the same cloth. Both
they and the sisters were shaven,® and the latter
wore tunics and mantles of russet, and each had
his or her own camera. The master corrected
all excesses of the hospital in chapter, with the
counsel of the brethren and sisters, according to
their rule, and as long as he lived he administered
the goods of the house well and faithfully. Nor
did he admit anyone into the hospital contrary
to the statutes. He had been elected in the
king’s name by the mayor and commonalty of
York, and presented to, and admitted by, the
Lord Archbishop. He held two prebends of the
hospital, one for himself, and the other pro
extraneis supervenientibus. He was master for
three years. After the death of Thomas de
Langetoft, a certain Simon de Wyllardby was
elected, presented, and admitted in the same
manner. He allowed the brothers and sisters
to alter their habit and tonsure as they liked,
contrary to rule. He admitted thirty-six sisters,
four of them pro Deo as lepers, the rest for
money, each paying 20 marks, which he spent
on the requirements of the hospital, but the
money was not sufficient. He did not correct
excesses according to rule. He was master
for ten years, and bought 2 bovates of
land at Grimston, which the hospital still
possessed, but he left it owing £20 in money,
besides 5 sacks of wool and 10 quarters of
barley. Because of these debts he was deprived.

Robert de Sancto Laurencio” succeeded, and

* The period of Stephen’s abbacy.

@*Et tonsati, et sorores tonsate. This can
hardly mean more as regards the sisters than that
they had their hair cut short.

” From an earlier inquisition of 1285 it is clear
that he was also called Robert Lyttil. At this in-
quisition the jurors reported that Robert le Graunt
(appointed 1281) had, before he was master, coun-
selled Robert Lyttil to sell the 3 bovates of land, and
that the goods of the hospital, about which complaint
was made that they had been wasted, had been
wasted by him (Robert le Graunt) and that he had
excommunicated those brothers and sisters who would
not consent to the common seal being set to the
writings. Yorks. Ing. (Rec. Ser.), ii, 30.

346

RELIGIOUS

was presented and admitted as before. He con-
tinued the use of the lay habit allowed by
Wyllardby, and failed to correct excesses ac-
cording to rule, but he discharged all his pre-
decessor’s debts, and with the consent of the
brothers and sisters sold 3 bovates of land and a
messuage at Newton in Pikering Lythe to
Master William de Pikering with the stock,
for 60 marks, and with the money received
bought sheep, oxen, cows, and other stock and
necessaries for the hospital. He admitted one
brother, and two sisters for 60 marks, which
he expended on the requirements of the house.
He was master for three years, and held a pre-
bend and a half a year, et gratis se deposuit.

After his deposition the king wrote to John

de Lydgrane, Sheriff of York, to choose, with
“J. de Vallibus and other justices itinerant then
at York, a fit chaplain to be presented to the
archbishop as master, At the instance of the
mayor and other citizens of York he chose
Robert le Graunt, who was presented to the
archbishop by the sheriff and admitted.”

After his institution Robert le Graunt found
the brothers and sisters were not living according
to their rule, and he set to work to correct
them, but certain of them rebelled, and brought
a charge, described as crimen falsi, against him.

An inquiry was held by Alan de Walkingham
who, examining both the brethren and citizens
of York, pronounced Robert le Graunt not
guilty. The brothers and sisters demanded a
further inquiry, which was held for the king by
Thomas de Normanvill, who, after investigation,
pronounced Robert le Graunt partly to blame.
A not very clear account of Robert le Graunt’s
misuse of the hospital follows, and the jurors
proceeded to say that he took no corrody on
account of the poverty of the hospital. He was
master three years, and held during his last year
prebends of 60s. He was deposed by Thomas
de Normanvill, who committed the custody to
Richard de Driffeld, which position he retained
for six years, but he did not correct the excesses
of the brothers and sisters according to their
rule. He admitted Robert Bartrem of Wilber-
foss into the hospital without the consent of the
brethren and sisters. He received 23 marks for
this, but as the jurors understood did not use it
for the common service of the hospital. He
received a leper pro Deo, and another by consent
of the brethren and sisters for 23 marks, spent
on the needs of the hospital. During his time
he rendered no account. He allowed the
brethren and sisters to sell things contrary to
rule. The jurors concluded by saying that
Robert Bartrem was admitted to the king’s in-
jury, and also found that the house had been
founded, im principio, nomine leprosorum and for

He was admitted 28 Jan.
Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 130).

1280-1 (York

HOUSES

the maintenance of feeble aged men of the
city.

A list follows of the brothers and sisters who
made profession of obedience in the hospital
before W. de Hamelton and J. de Langrayns,
associated with him. It begins with the names
of Richard de Driffeld and Robert de Sancto
Laurencio,”™ both of them chaplains. —Twonames
of men follow with /aicus written against each
and seven other men’s names. The names of
eight sisters follow. All were enjoined, on the
part of the king, to wear the regular habit which
they had on the foundation of the hospital, viz.,
a gown (gunnellum) and scapular of russet, they
were to have ‘tonsura per aures sine tynis’”
with amices.

The jurors further stated that they knew well
by the muniments and a certain confirmation by
King Stephen, that the hospital of St. Nicholas,
York, was of the foundation of the Kings ot
England, but by whom they could not say.
They reported that the hospital was broken
into by night by thieves, and the chest, in which
were the charters and various muniments of the
hospital, was carrried away.

An examination of witnesses follows at length.
Richard de Derfeld (or Driffeld), as previously
mentioned, stated that he understood that the
hospital was founded on land given by the first
Abbot of St. Mary’s. He said that a charter
as to land in Huntington had been abstracted,
and recovered by Robert, the chaplain, a brother
of the house, who had to pay half a mark for it.

John Dagune, a brother, said that the house
was founded by the abbot, as already stated,
‘cum domina Matilda Regina,’ and that before
the foundation of the house in the place where
it stood the brothers were enfeoffed of a carucate
of land in ‘Nortfeld.’ Asked about the charters,
he agreed with Richard de Driffeld, and added
that Robert, the chaplain,’ was gravely sus-
pected of having abstracted them. Nicholas de
Houndeshay, another brother, agreed. Five
other brothers were called, and knew nothing
either as to the foundation or the charters.

A long inquiry followed as to the individual
behaviour of the brothers and sisters, which may
not unfairly be summarized as a mutual recri-
minination of one against another, or‘ of one
section against the other. It seems that the rule
was not kept, and that certain of the brothers

From this it appears that though deprived of the
mastership he retained the chaplaincy.

™ Ducange gives ‘gunnella, cotte de femine,’ &c.,
and for tynis ‘ bonnets carrez.’

The Empress Maud gave certain lands to the
hospital on condition that the brethren should give
to all lepers coming thither on the eve of SS. Peter
and Paul, bread, ale, mulvel (or cod), with butter and
salmon if available, and cheese ; Cah Close, 1272-9,
p: 280.

™ Robert Lyttil aHas Robert de Sancto Laurencio.

347

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

were trading on their own behalf. A charge
of immorality was brought by certain of the
brothers against one of the sisters, but otherwise
disorder and abuse of the hospital seem to have
been the most serious and general complaints.
Richard de Driffeld was again called as a witness
where he is called Magister domus hospitals,
although in all other cases he is merely custos.”®
His second evidence was chiefly to the effect
that all were inhobedientes, and that none observed
humilitatem. None had the tonsure except the
chaplains, and none wore the habit of religious.
None of the brothers were guilty of incontinence.
Asked if any of the brothers went into the city
without licence, he said they frequently did so.
Asked further if they were punished for this,
according to the rule, he replied Non ; whether
any frequented the tavern, his reply was Non.

In 1303 William Greenfield, Chancellor of
England, held a visitation and issued a series of
injunctions.’® Briefly, he ordered that all were
to obey the master, and that each brother and
sister was to receive the accustomed habit and
tonsure, which were to be kept for life. All
brothers and sisters not lawfully hindered were
to attend matins, mass, and other canonical
hours. The lay brothers and sisters were fre-
quently to recite the Lord’s Prayer, and the
Angelic Salutation, as the Lord inspired them,
praying for the whole estate of the universal
church.

The brothers and sisters were not to dwell
together under the same roof and cloister, and
not to meet together at undue times, or in
secret places. None, after admission, were to
engage in trading. All who were admitted, if
they retained things for their use, were to will
them to the hospital at death, The common
seal was to be under three keys, and all brothers
and sisters were to be summoned when the seal
was unlocked. The box which held the alms
of those who visited the church was to be in the
charge of the same three persons, and was to
have three keys. It, too, was only to be opened
before all; if they could not agree as to the
disposal of the alms in it, then such alms were
to be used for the hospital.

No one was to be admitted for a previous
compact to pay money, &c., as that was simony.
No alienations or long leases were to be granted
without the king being consulted. If the
master had to be absent for a long period, he
was to appoint the most efficient brother to take
his place. Three brothers were to be elected,
who were most competent in temporal matters,
to look after rural, agricultural, and other business
affairs. If any were disobedient, incontinent,
or guilty of other excesses, they were to be

* He seems to have been in charge as a ‘ custos
perpetuus,’ and not actually master.
7° Dugdale, Mon, Angi. vi, 710.

chastised for the first offence by withholding of
food for a number of days; for a second offence
the punishment was to be doubled, and if guilty
a third time they were to be expelled as incorri-
gible. Ifthe master himself were thus guilty, quod
absit, the sentence was reserved to the Chancellor
of England.

At a later period the hospital was annexed to
the priory of Holy Trinity at York, when there
is reason to believe that the prior became master
ex officio. In the Ministers’ Accounts of the
priory (1537-8) ” £26 ros. 6d. is accounted for
for the site of the late hospital of St. Nicholas
juxta civitatem Ebor.

In another document there is allusion to the
payment of £19 per annum in allowances to six
sisters of the hospital of St. Nicholas, extra barras
civitatis Ebor, annexed to the late priory of the
Holy Trinity. These payments were in con-
sideration of the age, debility, and poverty of the
said sisters, and also that they and their friends
had paid large sums to the prior or priors of the
late priory, for the food and chambers, &c. for
these sisters, which they stated had been granted
to them under the common seal of the late priory
at the rate of 63s. 4d. a year for each of them,
besides their chambers and the other commodities
of the hospital.

Masters AND WarbDeEns oF St. NICHOLAS
HospPira.

Thomas de Langetoft, c. 1261 (three years),
died 78

Simon de Wyllardby, succeeded c. 1264 (ten
years) 7°

Robert de Sancto Laurencio, a/ias Robert Ly-
tell, 1274 (three years) ®

Robert le Graunt, admitted 1281,8? deprived
1283 8

Richard de Derfeld, or Driffeld, appointed
1283 (six years) ®

Robert le Graunt, appointed 1292, occurs
1295 *°

Robert de Sancto Laurencio, admitted again
1301,” occurs 1305 ®

John de Godele, appointed 1303 ®

7 Mins. Accts. Yorks. 27-8 Hen. VIII, 113,
m. 2d.

° Chan. Misc. bdle. 20, file 13, no. 1.

”? Thid,

® Cf. Yorks. Ing. (Yorks. Rec. Ser.), ii, 30, 12 5.

*! Chan. Misc. loc. cit.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 1 30.

® Chan. Misc. loc. cit.

™ Thid.

*° Cal. Pat. 1281-92, p.

Baildon, Mon. we .

” Cal. Pat. 1301-7, p. § 3 or temporary warden.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 251.

* Cal. Pat. 1301-7, p. 102.

348

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

William de Wellop, appointed 1305

Nicholas de Hugate, appointed 1308," re-
signed 1318 ®

Nicholas de Malton of Hugate, appointed
1318 %-

Robert de Grymston, appointed 1319," occurs
1335%

John de Ampleford, occurs 1350,°° 1357”

Thomas de Stanley, occurs 1376, resigned
1384.

Adam de Akum, appointed 1384 1°

John de Akum, appointed 1388,! resigned
138

Thomas de Popelton, appointed 1389,° re-
signed 4

Thomas Walleworth, appointed 1394, ratified
July 1398 °

William de Neuton, appointed 13977

John Midelton, appointed Aug. 1398,° ex-
pelled 1399 °

Thomas Walleworth, restored 1399,” occurs
14081

Robert Wolveden, appointed 1409

John Midelton, reappointed (?), died 1429 ¥

Richard Riston, appointed 1429,!* occurs
1437!

Gilbert Haltoft, occurs 1452 1°

Thomas Drury, S.T.P., appointed 1452”

William Pykton, occurs 1455

Thomas Usburn, appointed 1462,” resigned
1467”

Cal. Pat. 1301-7, p. 408.

% Ibid. 1307-13, pp. 34, 146.

* Tbid. 1317-21, p. 120.

* Tbid. * Tbid. 269.
5 Ibid. 1334-8, p. 101.

% Cal. Close, 1349-54, Pp. 215.

” Ibid. 1354-60, pp. 343-4.

8 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 710.

® Cal. Pat. 1381-5, p. 467.

1 Tbid. ' Ibid. 1385-9, p. 493.
7? Thid. 1388-92, p. 97.
8 Tbid.

‘ Ibid. 1396-9, p. 260.

5 Ibid. 1391-6, p. 517.

6 Ibid. 1396-9, p. 387.

7 Ibid. 260 ; wardenship said to be vacant by re-
i gnation of Thomas de Popelton.

8 Thid. 386.

® Ibid. 1399-1401, p. 32.

1 Tbid.

" Tbid. 1405-8, p. 436.

1 Ibid. 1408-13, p. 104.

8 Tbid. 1422-9, p. 532 3 hospital vacant by death of
John Midelton.

4 Thid.

18 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 251.

6 Cal. Pat. 1452-61, p. 40.

W Tbid. ; he was a Dominican friar.

18 Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 242; he was Prior of
Holy Trinity.

19 Cal, Pat. 1461-7, p. 109 ; he was a brother of
St. Leonard’s Hospital.

% Ibid. 1467-77, p. 15.

John Shirwood, appointed 1467,” occurs
14712

Richard Speight, Prior of Holy Trinity, occurs
1535" :

179-94. OTHER HOSPITALS OF YORK

THE HosPITAL oF St, THomas THE Mar-
TYR OUTSIDE MickiecaTE Bar.*4—T his hospital
was founded, before 1391,” for the maintenance
of poor persons of either sex dwelling in the
neighbourhood of ‘ Mykyllythbar,’ and especially
for hospitality by day and night of all poor
travellers and sick poor passing through York.”

On 12 May 1478” the hospital was transferred
to the gild of Corpus Christi, when it was agreed
that ‘ from noweforth the said hospitall shall be
named, taken ande reputed the Hospitall of Cor-
poris Cristi and of Saynte Thomas of Canter-
burie,’ and from that time, till the dissolution of
the gild, the history is rather that of the gild than
of the hospital. The master, wardens, and
brothers and sisters of St. Thomas’s stipulated
that they should have the use of ‘their beddes
and beddrowmez, thaire owen propre liffes duryng,
without anny maner of expulsion,’ and also that
the brethren of the gild were to ‘ fynde vij almus
beddes convenyently clothed, for the ease, re-
fresshing, and harbering of pore indigent travayl-
ing people commyng unto the said hospitall.’

Although the gild of Corpus Christi was dis-

solved in 1547,”8 the hospital of St. Thomas
succeeded in retaining possession of its estates for
nearly thirty years longer.
_ In 1551-2 the master, after consulting with
the brethren of the hospital, and showing how
difficult it was to maintain the house and its
poor folks, suggested that they should call in the
aid of the lord mayor and aldermen of the city,
who were admitted as brothers of the hospital in
1552," when the lord mayor was elected master
and two of the aldermen wardens. For some
twenty-five years following, the lord mayor for
the year, and one of the aldermen, with ‘a
spiritual man,’ continued to fill these offices.

In 1575-6 John Marshe and other citizens
of London obtained grants of certain of the

" Tbid. ™ Ibid. 240.

*8 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 21.

“In an indulgence granted in 1489 by Arch-
bishop Rotherham (York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham,
fol. 2424) the hospital is called ‘hospitalis Beatae
Marie Virginis et Sancti Thomae Martyris extra
Mykillith Bar? Usually it was known as the hospi-
tal of St. Thomas the Martyr.

> Cal. Papal Letters, iv, 392 ; it is also mentioned in
the will of Margaret de Knaresburgh, 1398 (Test.
Ebor. [Surt. Soc.], i, 220).

” Tbid. 271. Practically the whole of the facts as
to this hospital here given are derived from that book.

* Ibid. Pref. p. xii. * Tbid. p. xiii.

349

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

possessions of the late gild of Corpus Christi.”
This was resisted by the master and wardens, and
a Special Commission was issued to inquire into
the matter. The result was that in February
1582-3 *! William Marshe and William Plum-
mer, representatives of the original grantees, con-
veyed the house or gild of Corpus Christi, with
all its lands and tenements, to the recorder and
town clerk of York, as trustees for the mayor and
commonalty of the city of York, to be by them
‘ymployed to the mayntenaunce and relief of
the poore.’ The charity has ever since that
time been in the hands of the Corporation.”

MasTERs

Robert Mason, LL.D., occurs 1478 ®
John Barnard, died 1551 *

William Pynder, died 1559 *
Anthony Iveson, occurs 1579-80 *

The 15th-century seal” is a vesica 2% in. by
1Zin., with a seated figure of St. Thomas the
archbishop in a canopied niche, blessing and
holding his crozier. The legend is :—

SIGILL’ HOSPITALITATIS STI THOME (DE)
MIKELG .. TH. .

Trinity Hosprra, Fosscate, YorK.—This
hospital, situated in the parish of St. Crux, was
founded by John de Roucliff in virtue of Letters
Patent dated 12 February, 45 Edward III.%
The formal ordination of the hospital by Arch-
bishop Thoresby is dated 27 August 1373.3
There was to be a chaplain, who was to be
called master or custos, and to whom was to be
committed the charge of the hospital, its inmates,
and its goods. There were to be thirteen poor
infirm persons, and two poor clerks keeping their
schools in the hospital, at the choice of the
master. The hospital was founded in honour of
Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin
Mary, but afterwards became known as the
hospital of the Holy Trinity. The hospital not
having been adequately endowed by its founder,
the Merchants’ Company of York took it under
their charge and financed it, and as a charity
under their care it still exists at the present day.

In 1411, the old chapel having fallen into
ruin, possibly injured through flooding of the

™ Reg. Corpus Christi Guild, York, p. xiii,

* Reg. Corpus Christi Guild, 270.

4 Thid. 225. * Ibid. 226.

* Tbid. 233.

* Cat. of Seah, B.M. 4409, Ixxv, 47.

® See Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 76n., from
which it appears that the hospital originated in a gild
in honour of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed
Virgin Mary.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 169.

“ As a religious foundation it was dissolved in
3 Edw. VI; Drake, Ebsr. 301.

river, a new one with a new altar was erected,
and Archbishop Bowett *’ licensed the master,
brothers, and sisters of the hospital of Our Lord
Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary (then
comprising besides the master two chaplains, two
clerks, and thirty sick poor) to have mass cele-
brated therein. It is clear from this that the
foundation must have been largely increased be-
fore 1422-3, when Drake” states that it came
into the hands of the Merchant Adventurers of
York.

Masters

Thomas Werkesworth, instituted 1 378," re-
signed 1387 44

Thomas de la River, succeeded 1387 *

Thomas de Neuby *

William Ottelay, instituted 1394, occurs
1429 %

John Berningham, resigned 1431 *

Richard Saunderson, succeeded 1431, occurs
1438

William Clyveland,® died 1504

Robert Wilberfosse, succeeded 1504," died
1512 %

Thomas Shawe, succeeded 15 12,°* died 1519 7

Robert Jacson, succeeded 1519,°8 occurs
1522-3 °°

The 14th-century seal is a vesica, 3 in.
by 14in., with an elaborate design of the corona-
tion of our Lady. The legend is :—

+ s’ COE HOSPITALITER (sic) FRATRV % SOROR
BEATE MARIE VIRGI IVXTA PORT FOSSE EBOR,

St. AntHony’s HosprraL in PEasgEHOLM.—
This hospital arose out of a gild of St. Anthony,
certain members of which obtained, in 1446, a

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Bowett, fol. 100.

© Ebor. 301 ; see also Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt.
Soc.), 76. A considerable grant was made in 13973
Inq. a.q.d. file4z7, no. 36.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. A. Nevill, fol. 27.

“ Thid. fol. gs. * Tbid.

“’ Reference omitted by the late Mr. Fallow.

" Reg. Corpus Christi Guild, Y ork, 1On.

* Ibid.

“York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 386. The
well-known treasurer of York.

* York Reg. of Wills, iii, fol. 530.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 396.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Savage, fol. 404.

* Ibid. Bainbridge, fol. 368.

8 Ibid. * Tbid. Wolsey, fol. 50.

58 Thid.

* Subs. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 64, no. 300.

Cat. of Seals, B.M. 4407, Ixxv, 45.

350

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

charter of incorporation from Henry VI. The
hospital was really under the invocation of the
Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Martin, but from
its connexion with the gild of St. Anthony,
was known as St. Anthony’s Hospital. Besides
the master and keepers, there were brethren and
sisters non-resident, together with a resident chap-
lain and seven poor men.®

On 13 August 1450 ® Robert Dobbes, vicar-
general of Archbishop Kemp, granted licence to
the master or custos of the gild or confraternity
of the house or hospital of the Blessed Mary and
St. Martin of the city of York, newly constructed,
and the brothers and sisters of the same, to have
divine service celebrated for one year in their
chapel, saving the rights of the parochial church
of that place. After the Dissolution the charity
continued under the government of the corpora-
tion of York.

THE HosPITAL oF St. ANTHONY, GILLy-
GATE.—The great hospital of St. Anthony of
Vienne seems to have had a chapel in Gillygate,
which was vacant about the end of the 14th
century. In 1401 a hermit settled there and,
pretending to have the authority of the hospital,
collected alms for the repair of the highways.
He was evicted in 1403, and it is probable that
a small hospital was established, as in 1429 indul-
gence was granted to those who gave alms for the
support of the hospital of St. Anthony outside the
walls of York.® The hospital stood at the end
of Gillygate next the Horsefair.”

St. ANDREWGATE Matson Dirv.—Nothing
is known of this house except that it was founded
before 1390, in which year William Durem left
3s. 4d. ‘pauperibus in le masidew in via Sancte
Andree.’ ® It occurs again in 1397, when
Richard Platter seems to have been recognized as
founder. Possibly it may be identical with
Thomas de Duffeld’s Maison Dieu in Little St.
Andrewgate which occurs in 1385 and again
in 1485, when John Bedford was apparently
patron.

THE HosPITAL oF St. Mary Macpa en,
BootHam, YorK.—Drake”™ says that ‘an uni-
form street once extended from Bootham-bar toa
place called Burton-stone, where a stone cross
formerly stood, the extent of the city’s liberties
on this side. Close by this stood formerly a
chapel dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen with a
spital called Magdalen’s Spital, but no remains of
either do now appear.’ It was founded by John
Gysburne, precentor of York, who died in

8 Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 560.

York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 430.

*’ Drake, Edor. 215.

® York Reg. of Wills, i, fol. 20.

® Brit, Assoc. Handbk. (York, 1906), 202.

6 [bid. 201. In 1398 it is called the hospital of
Richard Duffeld ; Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), i, 220.

7” Drake, Ebor. 258. :

§§ Tbid.

1481,” for two chaplains, and was more of a
chantry than a hospital.

HERTERGATE OR CasTLE Hirt Matson
Dizu.—This was founded by Thomas Howm,
brother of Robert Howm the founder of Monk
Bridge Maison Dieu. In his will (1406) he
bequeathed 30s. ‘pauperibus in domo mea super
le Castelhill.’’? The position of the Maison
Dieu being both in Hertergate and Castle Hill it
was known by both names. In the will of
William Skynner it is also spoken of as ‘le
masondieu super montem castri.’”? In 1390
Roger de Moreton left 2s. ‘ pauperibus hominibus
et mulieribus in le Mesondieu Thome Howme in
Hertergate.’”4 It is referred to in the will
of ‘Margaret de Knaresburgh Semester’ as
‘Thomae Holme infra parochiam Sanctae
Mariae ad portam castri.’”

THE HosPITAL OF St. HELEN, oR FIsHER-
GATE Hospirat.—This was one of the leper
houses of York, It stood near the extinct church
of St. Helen in Fishergate, and possibly was
attached to it. In 144478 Archbishop Kemp |
granted an indulgence for three years to all who
contributed towards the reparation of the house
or dwelling of the lepers of ‘St. Elene,’ com-
monly called ‘in Fishergate.’

THE HosPITAL oF ST. KATHERINE” OUTSIDE
MickLecGaTE Bar.—This was one of the four
leper houses of York, and stood outside Micklegate
Bar, near the church or chapel of St. James. In
1333 protection for two years was granted by
Edward III for the leprous men of the hospital
collecting alms.’® It housed lepers of both
sexes,’® and as one of the charities of the city
escaped suppression. In 1603,® in an account
of the progress of James I through York, it is
recorded that the king ‘took horse and passed
through the cittie forth at Micklegate towards
Grimstone, the house of Sir Edward Stanhope,
the earle of Cumberlande and the lord-major
beareing the sword and the mace before the king
untill they came unto the house of St. Kathren.’
In 1652 the hospital was rebuilt on the old site.
This building was removed in 1835." It is still
one of the York city charities.

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 782.

™ R. Beilby Cooke, Some Early Civic Wills of York
(reprinted from Proc. Yorks. Archit. Soc.), 41.

8 York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 2144.

™ Ibid. fol. 14d.” Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), i, 220

"8 York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp. fol. 893.

™ The hospital of St. Katherine by St. Nicholas
(Drake, Edor. 236) may have been only another name
for this house. No other hospital of St. Katherine is
known. 8 Cal. Pat. 1330-4, p. 452.

” Robert Sporrett, citizen of York (10 Jan. 1475),
left ‘pauperibus leprosis utriusque sexus in domo
Sancte Katerine extra Mikellith 124,

8 Drake, Edor. 132.

*! Hargrove, The New Guide €Sc. to York (1838),
52, 53, where a small woodcut of the 1652 building
may be seen,

353

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Monk Bripcz Matson Driev.—There was
a small hospital on Monk Bridge as early as
1350, in which year Edward III granted pro-
tection for the master and brethren of the
hospital of lepers of St. Leonard on ‘ Monkbrig,’
who had not sufficient to live on unless relieved
by alms. It was possibly refounded by Robert
de Howm, citizen and merchant of York, who
died in 1396, and in his will desired ® that
Robert his son and all into whose hands certain
of his lands should come were to ‘ uphold a house
near Monk Bridge in Monkgate . . . which I
have made into a hospital (ad bospitandum) for poor
invalids of both sexes there, for the poor of which
sort I have constructed twenty beds in the same,
for the health of my soul and the souls of all
faithful departed.’ The will proceeds with
directions that the house was to be maintained for
100 years after his death.

NortH Street Matson Dizv, York.—
This house possibly owed its origin to William
de Salley, Sheriff of York, 1397-8, who in 1401
occurs as founder or patron. In his will (1408)
he bequeathed to his wife a tenement in North
Street in St. John’s parish, facing the king’s
highway, with six houses in the lane there,
beside the ‘ Meson Dieu’ on the south side of
the lane. *

Perhaps this was really the house founded by
Isolda de Akastre, of which William de Salley
had become patron. The ‘hospital of Ysolda
Akaster in North Street’ is mentioned by Richard
Howme, and to the poor of the house he left
40s. for equal division among them.® Isolda de
Acaster was the widow of John de Acaster,
Mayor of York in 1364 and again in 1378-9,
and the hospital is ascribed to John de Acaster
in the will of Margaret de Knaresburgh, 1398.%

Ouszpripck Maison Drev.—Drake men-
tions the ‘hospital or maisondieu’ on Ouse-
bridge.” Allusions to it are frequent, especially
in bequests to the poor in it. It sheltered
persons of both sexes, and was one of the chief
institutions of its kind in York. In 1305, when
certain citizens of York were accused of forming

an illegal fraternity or gild, the defendants |

alleged that there was a house of old time
founded by the citizens and good men upon the
Ousebridge by the chapel of St. William, which
was known as ‘God’s house,’ endowed with
lands and rents for the support of the poor and
lepers ; and many citizens who had fallen upon

* Cal. Pat. 1348-50, p. 542.

R. Beilby Cooke, Some Early
York, 34.

“See as regards this Reg. of Corpus Christi Guild,
York, 238 n.

S Some Early Civic Will of York, 22, 23. To ‘le
meysendieu in North Street? William Durem in
1390 left 5s. (York Reg. of Wills, i, fol. 20).

* Test. Ebor. (Surt, Soc.), i, 220.

* Ebor. 236.

Civic Wills of

misfortune were supported by this institution,
but through the neglect and mismanagement of
the authorities it had died out many years before,
and they, for the good of their own souls and for
the soul of King Edward, had refounded the
charity in 1302,endowing a chaplain and founding
a gild to perpetuate the alms.®

Perer Lange Littre Matson Drev.—This
house was founded by John de Derthyngton ® at
the end of the 14th century, prior to 1390,” when
Roger de Moreton bequeathed 12d. to the poor
in ‘le mesondieu Johannis de Derthyngton in
Peter Lane,’ and William Durem™ left 535,
‘pauperibus in le maisyndew in Petirlane
littyll.’ In 1396 ® Robert Howm (the founder
of Monk Bridge Maison Dieu) left 40s. to the
poor ‘in hospitali Johannis de Derthyngton in
la Peter Lane Littyll.’? It was in existence in
1474, when William Skynner left 3s. 4d.
‘pauperibus hominibus existentibus in le maisin-
dew in Peter lane littil.’

Layerruorre Hosprrat.—aAll that is known
of this hospital is Leland’s statement.“ ‘Ther
was a place of the Bigotes hard withyn Laithorp
Gate, and by it an hospital of the Bigotes
foundation. Syr Francis Bygot let booth the
Hospital and his House al to ruine.’ It is
probably the same as the Layerthorpe Bridge
Maison Dieu, said to be mentioned in 1407."

Wuirerriars Lang Matson Dirv.—This
house is said to have been founded by John
Holme in 1472.% On 7 September 1481”
Archbishop Rotherham granted a forty days’
indulgence to all those who, having confessed
their sins, contributed to the maintenance and
refection of the poor of either sex in a certain
house called ‘ Masyndew in le Whit Friar layn,’
York.

Drake mentions the existence of a hospital of
St. Loy on the east side of Monk Bridge,®® and
of a hospital or maison dieu of the Shoemakers,
near Walmgate Bar. A maison dieu in
Stonebow Lane occurs in a will of 1362, and
one in the Little Shambles in 1470,!! and it is
possible that there were other small establish-

ments of which even the names are not remem- '
bered.

* Assize R. 1107, m. 19.

® He died in 1402. York Reg. of Wills, iii,
fol. 73).

” Tbid. i, fol. 144.

* Ibid. fol. 20.

” Cooke, Some Early Civic Wills of York, 23.

* York Reg. of Wills, iv, fol. 2148,

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 782, quoting Leland,
tin. i, 57.

*° Brit. Assoc. Handbk. (York), 201.

% Ibid.

*” York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, fol. 345.

*® Ebor. 252.

* Ibid. 236, 306.

11 Thid.

352

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

COLLEGIATE CHURCHES

195. COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF ST.
JOHN THE EVANGELIST, BEVERLEY

In the preface to the Provost’s Book, written
about 1417, the earliest foundation of the
church is said to have been in the time of King
Lucius, towards the middle of the 2nd century.
The writer goes on to say that it was destroyed
by Horsa and Hengist, refounded as a monastery
of black monks and nuns and seven secular
priests by St. John of Beverley, destroyed by the
Danes under Hubba and Hingwar, and recon-
stituted and augmented as a college of seven
canons regular by King Athelstan.1 Nothing is
known of the constitution of the monastery
founded by St. John of Beverley in the later
part of the 7th century. Nor can it be actually
proved that St. John’s Monastery, which Bede,
his contemporary, calls Inderawuda (in silva
Deirorum), where he was buried in 721, was at
Beverley? The destruction of St. John’s
foundation by the Danes is vouched for by
history as little as the destruction of the mythical
Romano-British church by theSaxons.? Athelstan
was regarded throughout the Middle Ages as the
real founder of the college, who, by the charter
whose grants are summed up in the phrase ‘ Swa
mikel fredom giue I the, Swo hert may think or
eghe see,’ conferred on the church its privilege of
sanctuary, its due of four thraves from each
plough in the East Riding, and other well-
known features of its franchise.* The story of
Athelstan’s visit rests, however, on no con-
temporary record ;° while his charter is found
in no form earlier than the 13th century, and
summarizes privileges which were granted by
later sovereigns.

' Text printed in Beverley Chapter Act Bk. (Surt.
Soc.), ii, 305-6.

? Bede, Hist. Eccl. lib. v, cap. 6. See for a full
discussion of the identification of Inderawuda with
Beverley, Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), i, pp. xv—xix.

5 Simon Russell calls Hingwar and Hubba ‘ filios
Swayn, regis Danorum’ (Beverley Chapter Act BR. i,
p. xvili.) He also seems to have imagined that the
church of Beverley was dedicated to the Archbishop
St. John.

“The original charter (Cott. Chart. iv, 18) is
printed in Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 280-7,
with a translation into modern English. The phrase
‘Swa mikel fredom,’ &c., appears in several forms. In
a grant of Henry IV to Archbishop Scrope for re-
moving certain ambiguities in the charter (23 Aug.
1404; Cal. Pat. 1401-5, p. 395) it is ‘ Als fre make
I the as hert may thynke or eghe may see’ (cf. Cal.
Pat. 1422-9, p. 86).

5 The earliest authority seems to be William Ketell
(see note 36 to ‘Eccl. Hist.” above, p. 4. The
various accounts are discussed by Leach, Chapter Act
Ba. (Surt. Soc.), i, p. xx et seq.

3 353

A small body of secular clergy may have been
gathered together, many years before the Norman
Conquest, in the church of St. John the
Evangelist, which contained the tomb of St.
John of Beverley, in the principal town of the
East Riding.6 The canons of Beverley received
their first authentic royal charter from Edward
the Confessor.’ The last three Saxon Arch-
bishops of York seemed to have placed the
canons on the footing of a corporate body with
landed property. Atlfric caused a shrine to be
made for the saint, and obtained estates in
the East Riding for the church. Cynesige
built a high tower of stone at the west end of
the church.? Ealdred built a new presbytery,
and decorated the whole church with painting
and splendid furniture. He finished the frater
and dorter, which Aflfric and Cynesige had
begun, and granted new endowments of land to
the chapter.!° The authentic history of the
college, with its body of canons, and their com-
mon residence, the Bedern," may be said to
begin at this point. It is not unlikely that an
unscientific age, searching for a royal founder,
may have hit upon Athelstan as a king whose
reign had exercised a unifying force on Britain,
and was remembered as a landmark in its history.”

6 Folcard, the biographer of St. John (Hist. Ch. of
York) [Rolls Ser.], i, 239 et seq.), writing soon after
the Norman Conquest, says that he was buried at
Beverley in St. John’s (Bede, loc. cit. says St. Peter’s)
porch. The author of ‘Chron. Pontif.’ (Hist. CA. of
York [Rolls Ser.], ii, 329) also says that he died at
Beverley, and speaks (ibid. 238) of the monastery of
Beverley, which he had rebuilt from the foundations.
Neither writer mentions Inderawuda. :

7 The chief charters of the church are as follows :—
(1) Edward the Confessor (no date) ; (2) William I
(no date); (3) Henry I (no date); (4) Stephen,
1135 (Chapter Act Bk. [Surt. Soc.], ii, 288-9) ;
(5) Henry II; (6) John, 8 Oct. 1202 and others ;
(7) Henry III, 26 Apr. 1242 [misprinted 20 Apr. in
Cal. Chart. R. 1226-57, p. 269]; (8) Edward I,
inspeximus and confirmation, 26 June 1297 (Cal.
Chart. R. 1257-1300, p. 468); (9) Edward II,
inspeximus, 7 Sept. 1310 (Ca/. Pat. 1307-13, p.
286) ; (10) Edward III, inspeximus, 30 Nov. 1330
(ibid. 1330-4, p. 21) ; (11) Richard II, inspeximus,
10 Feb. 1377-8 (ibid. 1377-81, p. 120), and
26 Apr. 1382 (ibid. 1381-5, p. 118) ; (12) Henry
IV, inspeximus, 1 Mar. 1400-1 (ibid. 1399-1401,
p- 456) ; (13) Henry V, inspeximus, 25 Nov. 1413;
(14) Henry VI, inspeximus, 13 Mar. 1427-8 (ibid.
1422-9, pp. 490, 491) ; (15) Edward IV, 21 Feb.
1472 (ibid. 1467-77, p. 309).

® Hist. Cd. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 343.

* Thid. 344. ” Thid. 353-4.

4 For the origin of this word, see account of the
Bedern at York.

™In the same way, Edgar the Peaceable was
reckoned as the founder of Southwell, Tamworth,
St. Mary’s, Shrewsbury, and other Midland colleges.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The canons of Beverley owned a large amount
of land at the time of Domesday.” It is probable
that they were already seven in number, deriving
their income, like the canons at York, from a
common fund. Thomas of Bayeux is credited
with the foundation of the office of provost at
Beverley, as at York.4# But while at York the
increase in the number of canons and the assign-
ment of separate prebends to each led to the
discontinuance of the office, the provostry re-
mained a permanent feature at Beverley. The
possessions of the canons were regarded as one
common prebend in which each canon possessed an
annual dividend. The corpus of each prebendal
share was regarded as consisting in the corrody
of daily rations derived from the Bedern.® The
most important source of income, however, was
the tribute of thraves paid by each parish in the
East Riding,’® and, although in the course of
time thraves from certain specified parishes were
appropriated to some of the canons,’ the scat-
tered nature of such property prevented the
establishment of separate prebends with a fixed
area. The duty of the provost was to see to the
collection of the thraves, and to divide their
annual proceeds. He himself held no office in
the church in right of his provostry, although he
was usually admitted to one of the seven canon-
ries.!8 He was, in fact, the officer in whom the
temporalities of the church were vested. The
chapter, in Domesday, was in full possession of
the regalities of the lands of St. John; ® and it

® See ‘Eccl. Hist.’ above, p. 11.

“The story of the foundation of the provostry is
told in the Provost’s Book, fol. 81d. (Chapter Act Bk.
(Surt. Soc.], ii, 332 et seq.), where it is attributed to
the existence of quarrels among the canons over their
common property.

** This was recognized by Archbishop Greenfield in
his ordinance of 17 Apr. 1307 (Chapter Act BA.
[Surt. Soc.], i, 193), by which the corrodies were
united formally to the prebends. His statute was
pleaded by the canons in 1324 in answer to Melton’s
objections (ibid. ii, 58—9).

© The thraves formed part of the concessions of the
early charters of the church ; important details as to
the manner of their delivery and the punishment of
defaulters are found in the Letters Patent of John,
3 Oct. and g Nov. 1203 (see Cal. Pat. 1307-13,
p- 86).

“e.g. in Valor Eccl, (Rec. Com.), v, 131, the
prebendary of St. Stephen’s altar received thraves from
Cherry Burton, Rowley, Skerne, Kirk Ella, Watton,
Scorborough, Lockington, Lund, Leconfield, Wressell,
and Bubwith. Others received the thraves of parishes
specially named.

© He was not always a canon. Robert of Abber-
wick (provost 1304-6), Walter Reynolds (1306-8),
William de la Mare (1338-60), and others do not
seem to have held a canonry. William of Melton
(1308-18) and Richard of Ravenser (1360-9) were
admitted to canonries after their accession to the
provostship.

* Dom. Bk. fol. 3044, col. 1.

is not unlikely that the office of provost, as chief
magistrate and temporal agent of the canons,
may have been established at a date earlier than
that usually assigned to it.

Each of the canonries, in process of time,
was distinguished by the name of an altar in the
church. ‘The original seven were known by
the names of the altars of St. Andrew, St. James,
St. Martin, St. Mary, St. Michael, St. Peter,
and St. Stephen. The prebendary of St.
Martin’s altar was also rector of the chapel of
St. Mary; but no parish church within the
provost’s jurisdiction was annexed to any separate
canonry.” To these was added at an unknown
date an eighth canonry, attached to St,
Katharine’s altar, the holder of which was not
ex officio a member of the chapter, but attended
chapter meetings by invitation.” The corpus of
this prebend was half the daily offerings from
the high altar. The other half, and the whole
of all other offerings and profits accruing to the
church or common fund, were shared by the
seven other canons,”

The archbishop himself had his stall in quire,
to which an annual corrody from the Bedern
was attached.* This, however, did not give
him a place in chapter, or the right to be re-
garded as a canon and prebendary. The right of
collation to the provostry and canonries was in
the hands of the archbishop.

The church had no dean,”* but there were in
it three dignitaries,° the precentor, chancellor,
and sacrist or treasurer. “These were appointed
by the provost, and received their income from
the revenues of the provostry. They took rank
below the canons, with stalls in quire, but no
voice in chapter. The precentor had, as usual,

® The parochial status of the canons with regard to
their altars in the church, mentioned below in rela-
tion to the vicars choral, was a peculiar feature of
their office. A canon, for this reason, was required
to be in priest’s orders: ‘cum prebende in ecclesia
nostra Beverlacensi sacerdotales existant ex institu-
cione ac ordinacione primaria earundem’ (Chapter
Act Bk, [Surt. Soc.], i, 14, 15).

“Thus in 1330 Master William of Abberwick,
eighth canon, was said to attend chapter meetings by
special grace of the chapter (ibid. ii, 94).

” Thid. i, 193.

* Greenfield, in uniting the corrodies to the pre-
bends (ibid. i, 193), defined them as the ‘corpora’ of
the prebends ‘ prout ex prebenda archiepiscopali. . .
cuius corpus in €o solo consistit corrodio satis liquet.’

* The Dean of Beverley, mentioned, e.g., Archbp.
Giffards Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 54, was, of course, the
dean of the Christianity, who exercised his office out-
side the minster.

** The position of these officers, below the canons,
has led to a denial of the title of dignitaries to them.
But that their offices were regarded as ‘dignitates’ is
shown by a document in the Town Minute Book of
Beverley, printed in Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), ii,
339 et seq.

354

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

the control of the song-school ; while the chan-
cellor was ex officio master of the grammar-
school.** ‘The chief duty of the sacrist was the
care of the church and the shrine of St. John.”

More difficult to explain is the position of the
seven clerks known as Berefellarii, who received
corrodies from the Bedern, and evidently were
attached to the church from an early date.”
Their nickname has been interpreted to mean
‘bear-skins,’ from some distinctive feature of
their dress, or ‘bare-skins,’ which may imply
that they were originally poor clerks subsisting
on alms derived from the seven canons, It
seems that seven bedesmen, attached to the
foundation, were superseded by seven poor clerks,
who took their part in the services of the church.”
Their position improved by degrees. Although
bound to continual residence, they were fre-
quently allowed licences of non-residence to
study at universities*?; and in 1324 one of
them is called magister.*4 Archbishop Thoresby
raised them to an equality with the parsons of
York Minster; and the statutes of 1391 pre-
scribed that they should no longer be called by
the turpe nomen of berefellarii, but should be
known as parsons? In 1422 their status is
described as a parsonage, office, or benefice **;
and in 1471-2 they were incorporated as the
seven parsons in the quire of the collegiate
church.** Like the dignitaries, who were also
bound to continual residence, they were appointed
by the provost.

Arundel’s statutes 9° enumerate, in addition,
nine vicars or deputies of the archbishop and
canons, seven chantry priests, nine canons’
clerks, one clerk of the precentor, a clerk of
the charnel, seven clerks of the parsons or dere-
fellarit, two incense-bearers, eight choristers, two
sacrist’s clerks, and two vergers or bell-ringers.
The vicars choral, as at York and elsewhere,

*§ See Leach, ibid. i, pp. lix-Ixvi.

7 Ibid. pp. lvi, lvii. At Southwell the sacrist or
sexton had a prebendal stall attached to his office.

* Their position is fully discussed by Leach, ibid.
pp. lxvii-lxxiv.

* This appears from the undated Ordinance of the
Refectory, printed by A. F. Leach, in Arch. lv, 19, 20,
from Lansd. MS. 895, fol. 132. See Chapter Act
Bk. (Surt. Soc.), i, p. lxx.

% See ibid. i, 73-4, 176.

3 Ibid. ii, 46.

3 Cal. Pat. 1422-9, p. 17.

* Ibid. 1467-77, p. 309. The date of the grant
is 21 Feb. In Chapter dct Bk. (Surt. Soc.), i,
p. Ixxiv, the reference to Pat. 11 Edw. IV is mis-
printed 2 Edw. IV.

* Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), i, 336 ; ii, 168-9.

*6 Printed at length from inspeximus and confirma-
tion in Pat. 21 Ric. II (Cas. Pat. 1396-9, p. 348)
in Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 265 etseq. There
is an inaccurately printed copy in Dugdale’s Monasti-
con, vi, 1308. The original of the statutes does not
appear to exist.

* Ibid, 269.

were permanent institutions; and one of them
represented the archbishop in right of his corrody.
One peculiar feature of their office was that each
of the prebendal altars carried with it a cure of
souls. Archbishop Melton in 1325 ascribed
this to the original status of the minster as a
parish church, served by the canons in common,
and to the subsequent division of the parish
among the canons, to whom fixed cures of souls
were assigned by virtue of their prebends.”
The fact, however, was that the cures of souls
annexed to the altars had no parochial boun-
daries. "To Melton’scomplaint that suitable vicars
had been instituted in none of the prebendal
parishes, save in that of St. Martin’s altar,®* the
chapter answered that the ‘ parishioners’ of each
prebend came to their own altar in the church,
and were there duly served by the vicar of the
stall, and that, in case of sickness, the vicars
choral were ready to minister to those within
their cure. The existence of an additional clerk
in the payment of each canon was held by them
to supply an answer to any charge of neglect by
the vicars of their choral duties.*°

The clerks of the canons, precentor, sacrist,
and berefellarii were known as ‘clerks of the
second form,’ and after a year of probation in
quire were admitted to minor orders. Their
duty was to assist at the quire offices and serve
at the altars. They were under the correction
of the precentor, who examined them in song ;
but their qualification for admission was an exa-
mination in letters by the chapter.*! The
choristers received a free education at the gram-
mar school *?; they were admitted to the quire
by the sub-chanter,*® who was one of the vicars
choral.# The number of chantry priests, seven
in 1391, was fifteen at the time of the suppres-
sion of the college.® ‘The chantry priests were
never incorporated,

Little is known of the internal history of the
chapter of Beverley until the later part of the

” Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 57. Melton
objected that some of these parishioners lived ‘in
remotis et locis valde distantibus ab ecclesia Bever-
lacensi predicta.’

*° The ordination of the vicarage bears date 23 Dec.
1269. Printed ibid. i, 194-7.

* Ibid. ii, 59. A jury of men of Beverley in
1425 defined the parochial rights of each prebend,
with the result that the town of Beverley was dis-
charged from its contribution to two subsidies levied
in 1424, because there was no parish church in it
but that of St. Nicholas or Holmekirk. (Ibid. 339
et seq.) “© Ibid. i, 212.

“Ibid. §3. The four clerks of St. Mary’s were
also examined by the chapter, and counted as clerks
of the minster (ibid. 189).

“ Tbid. 292-3.

“ See e.g. ibid. 221.

“ Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 521-6. Count-
ing the chantry of Corpus Christi in the charnel,
there were sixteen.

Ibid. 293.

355

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

13th century. An attempt to secure the pro-
vostship for his half-brother, Morgan, was one of
the many causes of dispute between Geoffrey
Plantagenet and his subordinates.** The position
of the provost led to a quarrel between Fulk
Basset, provost c. 1222-40, and the canons, in
which Pope Gregory IX intervened at the
provost’s request. The chief cause was the
inordinate expenditure upon food in the Bedern,
at a time when prices were high; the provost
complained that his office brought him loss,
while the goods of the church were wasted.”
There was less excuse for the high-handed deal-
ings of the non-resident provost, Aymo du
Quart (1294-1304), both with the tenants of
the provostry and with the chapter, which
brought about the intervention of Archbishop
Corbridge.## When Aymo was elected Bishop
of Geneva in 1304 he sold goods belonging to
the provostry and the canons to defray the ex-
penses of his journey. The chapter stopped the
unauthorized sales, and sequestrated the property
of the provostry to the maintenance of the
Bedern.? In 1304-5 the official of Provost
Robert of Abberwick summoned the school-
master of the chapter to appear in his court in
answer to a plea brought by a rival schoolmaster
within the provostry. The canons challenged the
summons with the objection that, by ancient
custom, clerks wearing their habit in the minster
and dwelling in Beverley were answerable only
to the jurisdiction of the chapter. <A similar
argument was urged in 1305 against the claim
of the official of the archbishop to summon a
canon on certain unspecified charges. The
chapter threatened to appeal to the Curia if the
summons were carried into execution.®!

The growing customs of non-residence and
pluralism led to difficulties between the provost
and canons, and in the chapter itself. Aymo
du Quart was not only non-resident and a holder
of other lucrative preferments, but, as canon,
did not obey the fundamental condition of pro-
ceeding to priest’s orders. His successor in his
canonry found his prebendal house in need of
almost entire rebuilding.’ By the end of the
13th century, at any rate, the corrodies of
victuals in the Bedern had been commuted for
money payments. In 1286 Archbishop Romanus
ordered the tax of a fourth payable by each non-
resident to be levied on the prebends of three
canons and of the sacrist, chancellor, precentor,
and the portions of all seven derefellarii.** The
canons were, as a rule, clerks chiefly engaged in

*° See ‘Eccl. Hist.’ above, p. 22, n. 61.

“ Archbp. Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 175 (Addenda,
no. xlix) ; see also Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), ii, pp.
xxiii, xxiv.

“ Chapter Act BR. (Surt. Soc.), i, 15.

“Ibid. 21-2. ® Tbid. 58-60.
' Tbid. 87-9. Ibid. 14-15.
® Tbid. 324. * Tbid. ii, 150.

the king’s and archbishop’s business. Thus
Master John of Nassington in 1306 was directed
by Archbishop Greenfield, whose chancellor he
was, to receive the full corpus of his prebend, by
virtue of a papal decree which authorized canons
in attendance on their bishop to count as resident
in their chapters.°° At a convocation in 1308,
when six of the canons were present, it was
ordained that a canon going on business on behalf
of the church and at his own expense should be
accounted resident.°® A Frenchman, Peter son
of Emery, was presented by Edward I to the
prebend of St. Martin’s altar, the wealthiest
stall in the church. His admission was delayed
by his fellow canons, on the ground that he
made no effort to keep his statutory residence;
and he endeavoured to sue his three chief oppo-
nents for the fruits of his prebend before the
king’s court. This action naturally led to an
indignant assertion of the chapter’s right of
internal jurisdiction, ‘The deadlock caused by
the intervention of the king was solved by a
compromise, by which Peter agreed to accept
an annual pension from the prebend, while
remitting his claims to its fruits.” He died in
1309, and does not seem to have visited
Beverley.

The question of non-residence was taken in
hand by Archbishop Romanus, whose attention
was called to the state of the church by his
quarrel with Robert of Scarborough, the pre-
bendary of St. Stephen’s altar and Dean of
York.’ On 20th June 1290 he agreed with
the canons upon an ordinance by which twenty-
four weeks of residence was required yearly of
every canon, and the first twelve weeks were a
qualification for a share in the portions of non-
residents.” This ordinance was followed by
another, binding the dignitaries and derefellarii to
continual residence.” It was said later that the
chapter was induced to accept the decree by the
promise of a church worth at least 60 marks, to
be given to their common fund.® Romanus
fell out with the canons in 1295. On the
death of Peter of Chester, the chapter seques-
trated the goods of the provostry ; but Romanus
drove out their servants and took the property
into his hands. A commission was appointed
by the Crown to try the case, which probably
found for the chapter®; but a formal mandate
from the archbishop was duly obtained at the
next vacancy.®® Romanus was also accused of

% Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), i, 135-6.

*Tbid. 219 et seq. 7Thid. gg-1ol.

*Tbid. ii, 154. References to this quarrel are
plentiful in Romanus’ register. Its real reason seems
to have been Scarborough’s refusal to indemnify the
archbishop for expenses in a suit before the Curia
relating to the advowson of Adlingfleet.

§! Ibid. i, 192. 8 Tbid. ii, 21-2.

* Ibid. i, 15.

356

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

ragging a sanctuary-man from the house of one
f the canons, and was ordered by the king to
2t right one or two high-handed acts of which
is predecessors had been guilty.

At a visitation held by Archbishop Corbridge
11302 it was decreed that one canon at least
wust be found in residence to hold chapters,
Ithough leave was given to appoint a deputy, in
ase of unavoidable absence. Of Corbridge’s
emaining statutes, the most interesting relates
9 the candles which the vicars procured at matins
nd vespers from the sacrist. "These were to be
equired only when necessary, and the vicars
vere to return the unused candle-ends to the
acrist.©

Archbishop Greenfield’s visitation in 1306 led
o a new ordinance as to residence. The arch-
iishop found that the vicars and clerks were
hanging the conditions of life in the Bedern,
io doubt to their own advantage, and ordered
he canons to keep a watch on what was done
here, until his decree was issued.*® The decree
17 April 1307) reduced the statutory residence
if each of the seven primary canons to twelve
veeks in the year, after the manner of the lesser
esidence at York. ‘The corrodies of the seven
‘anons were now permanently united to the pre-
yends ; but for his share in the oblations of the
igh altar and other daily distributions, each
canon had to qualify by residence.”

Throughout these years the work of the fabric
of the nave was advancing. A new shrine was
nade for the body of St. John, and on 21 June
1308 Greenfield dedicated the new high altar in
ionour of St. John of Beverley. His fee was
aised by levying a tenth on each prebend.®
Archbishop Melton, formerly provost and canon,
n 1325 blamed non-residents for exacting their
ull shares in the daily distributions and for leav-
ng the parochial cures attached to their prebends
without sufficient vicars. He complained of the
nroads made on tithe by the exactions of thraves,
ind of the spiritual jurisdiction claimed by the
thapter over their tenants and parishioners. “The
chapter returned clear answers to Melton’s
charges. The question of the thraves was re-
erved for further discussion; but the spiritual
nd temporal jurisdiction of the chapter was
roldly asserted. Greenfield’s ordinance as to
esidence was held to cover the archbishop’s
complaint against non-resident canons.”

In 1329 the rectors of the deanery of Hart-
ill protested against the encroachment made
tpon their tithes, owing to the inability of poor
iroprietors to pay both tithe and thraves. Ac-
ording to custom, each canon claimed one
hrave of wheat, one of barley, and two of oats

“ Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 23.

* Ibid. 181-4. % Ibid. i, 170-1.
8 Ibid. 192-4. ® Tbid. 218-19.
® Tbid. 222. ” Tbid. ii, 56-9.

from each plough ; but the rectors asserted that
now the canons tried to get two of wheat and
two of barley in lieu of the customary four, so
that the payers, in order to satisfy these demands,
were forced to buy. The canons were also ac-
cused of defending recusant tithe-payers against
their rectors, and of exacting thraves on an
artificial assessment of the number of ploughs.”
The rectors were apparently instigated by a
foreign pluralist who held the benefice of Kirk
Ella.” The canons acted promptly against the
‘conspiracy.’ Provost Huggate in 1331 made
a special journey to London at the expense of
the chapter,’® and laid the case before the king.
The dispute however, did not end till 1334,
when Archbishop Melton obtained a monition
from the king on behalf of the chapter.”

A curious controversy concerned the status of
the lay officers of the Bedern, In 1304 the two
cooks obtained a royal mandate to stop a suit
against them in the court of the chapter, by
which their offices were defined as lay fees.”
The official of the provostry supported the cooks
in their defiance of the chapter, and the Bedern
kitchen became for the time being a cave of
Adullam, where the cooks and sanctuary-men
did what they pleased, holding banquets in the
hall, and burning large fires, which smoked out
the vicars.”® The dispute ended with the with-
drawal of excommunication from the cooks in
1306.” Such quarrels tended to the relaxation
of discipline in the Bedern. Notes of corrections
made by the chapter show that the morality of
the vicars was not above suspicion; ’® and, during
the same period, the chancellor, Robert of
Bytham, and William of Lincoln, one of the
resident canons, became notorious for their gal-
lantries.”

From the death of Provost Huggate in 1338
the internal history of the church is scantily
recorded, with the exception of one event. This
was the quarrel of Archbishop Alexander Nevill
with the canons in 1381. For some time before
he had endeavoured to usurp the extraordinary
privileges of the chapter, interfering with the
administration of probate, sitting to try causes in
the chapel of the chapter altar behind the quire,
and excommunicating those who did not appear.*!
Nevill’s claims rested solely upon the assumption
that the archbishop, by virtue of his corrody, was
a prebendary of the church and could exercise
the chapter’s jurisdiction as its head. On

" Chapter Act Bk. (Surt, Soc.), ii, 87-9.

® Tbid. ii, 92-3.

Tbid. gg-100.
in the Act Book.

™ Tbid. rog—11.

8 Ibid. 60-1.

7 Tbid, 168. e.g. ibid. 149-50, 152.

® Thid. 313-14, 94-6. . mais

* Ibid. ii, 202-65 ; Arch. lv, 1 et seq.

*' Chapter Act-Bk. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 224-5.

His bill of expenses is preserved

6 Ibid. i, 25-6.

357

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

2 March 1380-1 he gave notice of a visita-
tion of the chapter.*’ ‘The canons appealed and
claimed the protection of the Curia. On
27 March only the precentor, a berefellartus, and
a chantry priest appeared at the visitation to
make their obedience. Two days later the
vicars were present, but refused to submit to
visitation, on the ground that they were afraid
of their principals, the canons, and then went
out laughing.® Their determined contumacy is
one of the leading features of the business. The
chantry priests and Lerefellarii were more amen-
able, and three of the canons eventually obeyed
the summons. A writ of venire facias from
the king * was disregarded by Nevill, who ex-
communicated the vicars** and his two chief foes
among the canons, Richard of Ravenser and
John of Wellingborough. His violence was
checked by a further royal mandate,” but he was
still able to keep his opponents out of their
canonries.*1 The vicars were maintained at
Lincoln during their exile by Ravenser, who
was Archdeacon of Lincoln. Nevill fell into
disgrace a few years later, and early in 1388 a
royal commission was appointed to restore five
vicars, one derefellarius, and the chaplain of
Queen Isabel’s chantry to their benefices.”
Nevill made a serious effort to enforce regular
residence upon the canons. His decrees pro-
vided for the reform of the common life in the
Bedern, and abrogated Greenfield’s ordinance in
favour of the stricter constitution of Romanus.”
The statutes of Archbishop Arundel in 1391
settled the conditions by which the church was
governed until its suppression.* Detailed in-
structions are given as to the order of stalls in
quire, the presentation and admission of members
of the foundation, and sums of money to be
paid yearly out of the provostry. The archbishop
was recognized as a genuine canon and preben-
dary, and as president of the chapter when resi-
dent. No order was taken for the residence of
the canons; but the three ‘officers,’ the bere-
fellarii, vicars, and chantry priests were directed
to be constantly at their posts, and to take part
in the quire services. The corrodies of the
canons, including the archbishop, were settled at
annual payments of {10 a year each; the cor-
rody of the chancellor was raised toa like amount.
Extra payments out of the Bedern, over and
above those decreed by the statutes, were can-
celled ; and, in order to avoid any excess of
expenditure over revenue, the offices of goldsmith

® Tbid. 233-4. * Tbid. 234 seq.

*” Tbid. pp. Ixxviii, Ixxix. ® Ibid. p. Ixxxi.
* Cal. Pat. 1385~9, p. 465.

“ Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 249-54.
* See note 36 above.

and master mason were terminated by the death
of their existing holders, and the care of the
shrines and fabric thenceforward committed to
the chapter.

Arundel’s assertion of the presidential status
of the archbishop was probably regarded as a
dead letter. The Provost’s Book, drawn up in
his time, expressly calls the provost Robert of
Manfield, who was senior canon and prebendary,
the president of the chapter.%* Manfield appears
to have been concerned in Archbishop Scrope’s
rebellion, for in February 1407-8 he received a
royal pardon.” His enemies in the provostry
translated his letters of pardon into English, and
fixed copies to the doors of the inns of Beverley,
pretending that they were his letters of orders.
Headed by one of the governors of the town and
other municipal authorities, the commons of
Beverley attacked the provost’s house.** How
the matter ended is uncertain; but in 1417
Simon Russell describes the chapter as in a
flourishing state, the provost being at peace with
all the canons and ministers, and all in full
receipt of their corrodies and other payments,
so that probably the external strife was over.”
A difficulty arose between Provost Robert Nevill
and King Henry VI with regard to the corrody
of the butler of the Bedern, which the Crown
claimed on a vacancy. ‘This was settled after
Robert Rolleston had succeeded to the provost-
ship in 1427; 1 and meanwhile, on 13 March
1427-8, Rolleston obtained from the king
Letters Patent which confirmed all the rights
granted by previous charters to the provost and
chapter.?

Rolleston seems to have been the last provost
who was commonly resident at Beverley. The
last two provosts before the suppression of the
college were Thomas Wynter, a natural son of
Wolsey, and Reynold Lee, a relation of Arch-
bishop Lee. Neither at his appointment was of
an age to take priest’s orders ;” but this necessary
condition was overlooked. At the time of the
second Chantries Act, under which the college
was suppressed, Reynold Lee is described as
“temporall man,” i.e. administrator of its tem-
poralities.?

In the Valor of 15354 the revenues of the
provostship were reckoned at £109 8s. 84d. net.
The corrodies of the canons were £7 145. each.
Other sources of revenue, principally derived
from thraves, brought the prebends up to amounts
which varied from £48 16s. 1d. to £31 85. 4d.

* Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 306.

” Cal. Pat. 1405-8, p. 407.

* Thid. p. 408.

® Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 307.

Thid. 336-8.

' Cal. Pat. 1422-9, pp. 490-1.

* Chapter Act Bk. (Surt. Soc.), ii, pp. xev, xcix.
* Yorks, Chant. Surv. (Surt, Soc.), §24.

‘ Valor Eccl. (Rec, Com,), v, 130 et seq.

358

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

The richest was that of St. Andrew’s altar ;
then followed the altars of St. James, St. Peter,
St. Stephen, St. Martin, St. Mary, and St.
Michael. St. Katherine’s, the eighth prebend,
was taxed on a revenue of {10 18s. 4d. The
previous taxation of 1291° had found St. Martin’s
the richest prebend, with £45. The next was
St. Andrew’s, with £27, to which followed
St. James’s (£26), St. Peter’s and St. Stephen’s
(each £25), St. Michael’s (£17), St. Mary’s
(£16), and St. Katherine’s (£6 135. 4d.). The
corrody of the eighth prebend in 1291 was
equal to the several corrodies of the chancellor,
precentor, and goldsmith ; the sacrist received
£12 yearly. In 1535 the chancellor had
£13 16s., and the precentor £13 gs. 4d. ; the
sacrist is not mentioned. Each Jerefellarius in
1534-5 had £6 13s. 4d., each vicar choral £8.
When the Chantry Certificates were taken in
1548, two prebends, St. Andrew’s and St.
Michael’s, had fallen into lay hands. St. Peter’s
was now the richest stall, with £42 65. 7d.; St.
Stephen’s, St. James’s, St. Mary’s, and St. Mar-
tin’s followed. The archbishop’s stall (St.
Leonard’s) produced an income of £11 6s. 8d.,
and St. Katherine’s of £10 12s. 10d. The
sacrist’s office was worth £24 9s. 8d., only about
£4 less than St. Martin’s prebend. The chan-
cery was reckoned at £13 2s. 44d., and the
chantership at £12 8s. 83d. The total incomes
of the Lerefellarii and vicars givea higher dividend
than that supplied by the Valor.®

After the suppression of the college one of
the vicars choral was appointed vicar of the
parish, with three assistant curates chosen from
among the inferior clergy of the church.” The
grammar-school was continued under a head
master, the stipend of the second master being
supplied from the funds of St. William’s Chantry.®
The lands of the church came into the hands of
various grantees of the Crown. Edward VI in
1552, and Queen Elizabeth in 1578, made
large grants out of the former possessions to the
Corporation of Beverley, who were constituted
patrons of the church and trustees of the fabric,
and continued to present to the vicarage until
the passing of the Municipal Reform Act.? The
patronage was then vested in the archbishop
until the purchase of the advowson of the vicar-
age by the trustees of the Rev. Charles Simeon.

The 13th-century seal’ for citations is a
vesica, 32 in. by 2in., having St. John seated
and holding a book, and blessing. ‘The fragment
of the legend that remains reads

EVERL’ AD CITATIONES.....

5 Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 302,

° Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 526 et seq.

" Chapter Act Bk, (Surt. Soc.), ii, pp. ci, cii.

8 Ibid, pp. cili, civ.

° Ibid. pp. cvi, cvii; Lawton, Coll. Rerum Eccl.
319, 323.

The 15th-century seal?! of the vicars choral
is a vesica, 2 in. by 1@ in., showing an altar
with chalice and candles upon it, and a sanc-
tuary lamp above. All that remains of the
broken legend is

. . GILL’ COM’ VICARIOR ... CLIE ... BEV. es

196. COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF
HEMINGBROUGH

The church of St. Mary of Hemingbrough was
given by the Conqueror to the Prior and convent
of Durham. It was a richly endowed rectory,”
and in 1426, on 26 October, a licence was ob-
tained from Henry VI for the conversion of the
church into a college, and in the following
month Archbishop Kemp made an ordination to
that effect. The college staff was to consist of
a provost or custes, three prebendaries, six vicars,
and six clerks.’ The Dean and Chapter of York
gave their consent to this ordination on 19 May
1427, but on condition that the provost and
collegiate body observed the terms of Archbishop
Thoresby’s charter of 1356, which, among other
things, provided that out of the revenue of the
church the annual sum of £1 13s. 4d. was to be
paid to the York Chapter, and also a sum of
£3 6s. 8d. to the Archbishop of York and his
successors,’®

The provost, according to the ordination, was
to be in priest’s orders and already a canon of
Hemingbrough before his election to the head-
ship. He was to exercise the cure of souls in the
parish, and he was primarily responsible for the
college finance. The church’s income was to be
paid to him, and he was to pay the stipends of the
canons, vicars, clerks, and others connected with
the church, his own personal stipend being
£26 13s.4d.ayear. For the greater part of the
year he was to be in residence,’® but by an or-
dination made 20 March 1479 by Archbishop
Lawrence Booth he was compelled to reside only
thirteen weeks in the year. The rectory-house
with its land and the vicars’ house were confirmed
to him under this ordination, and also the sole
administration of the spiritual and temporal mat-
ters of the college.”

The canons were to be residentiaries, either
‘continually or by turns,’ their period of residence
being thirteen weeks each. As his stipend each
was to have 10 marks a year, payable quarterly
nomine prebendae,and 10 marks payable at the end

" Thid. 2637, Ixxiv, 23.

% In the Pope Nicholas Taxation it was valued at
£itoa year. Lawton, Coll. Rerum Eccl. 442.

8 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iii, 98.

™ York Archiepis, Reg. Kemp, fol. 30.

% Tbid. Thoresby, fol. 280.

6 Ibid. Kemp, fol. 30.

" Tbid. L. Booth, fol. 128.

359

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

of the year nomine residentiae ;** but by the later
archiepiscopal enactment of 1479 the payment to
each canon was to be £2 135. 4d. a year for the
corpus of his prebend.”

Of the six vicars two were to be the chantry
priests of Cliff® and Wasse,** two foundations
then existing in the church. These chaplains
were to be present at masses and other hours, and
robe like the other vicars, their stipends arising
from their chantries to be augmented by a sum
of 2 marks per quarter payable by the provost.
The remaining four vicars were to have, under
the provost, the charge of the parish, and each
to receive 10 marks quarterly. “They were to
be ‘hebdomadaries according to the order of their
turn.’”2, The vicars were to have, by the 1479
ordination, a moiety of the faggots cut yearly
in the parish.”

Of the clerks, also six in number, four ‘ clerks
of the second form’ were to be chosen by the
provost, by whom also they were to be removable
at pleasure ; and each was to have £2 a year as
stipend. Two other clerks, aquae bajult, were to
be nominated by the parishioners, by whom pre-
sumably they were to be paid, but, if so, their
stipends were to be increased by a yearly payment
from the provost of 1 mark each ‘to make them
more diligent in their divine ministrations.’ ”

At the suppression William Whitehead, the
provost, received a pension of £13 145. 6d.” and
smaller sums were assigned to the other members
of the college.

The provost, two of the prebendaries (West-
wray and Todd), and the three pensioned vicars
were living in 1553 and still enjoying their
pensions.

Provosts of HEMINGBROUGH *°

John Rudbur (or Radburn), inst. 1427
John Harpour, inst. 1428

John Wythers, inst. 1429

Thomas Caudell, inst. 1440

Thomas Portington, inst. 1457
Lionel Wydvile, inst. 1471

James Preston, S.T.P., inst. 1475
Thomas Babthorpe, A.M., inst. 1480
Robert Marshal, inst. 1517 *7

William Whitehead, inst. 1531

8 York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 30.

8 Tbid. L. Booth, fol. 128.

* A chantry for the soul of Henry Cliff, canon of
York, was founded in this church about 1345. Burton,
Mon. Ebor. 446.

” The chantry of Wasse was founded by Robert de
Marisco, rector 1217-58 : Hist. of Hemingbrough, 88.

” York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 30.

® Tbid. L. Booth, fol. 128.

* Tbid. Kemp, fol. 30.

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 443.

* Occurs 1515 : Hist. of Hemingbrough, 73.

The 14th-century seal ** is a vesica, 13 in. by
in. with a design of a canon seated in a chair
holding a rod over a kneeling figure. The
legend is:

+i s’ CAPITVLI D’ HEMIGBVRC

The matrix is said to have been given in
1826 by Mr. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A., to the
Yorks. Philosophical Society, but they have now
only a wax impression of it.”

197. COLLEGE OF ACASTER

The college at Acaster was founded during the
reign of Edward IV.’ Tanner in the Notitia gives
a reference to an Act of Parliament of the reign of
Richard II (1483-5) which tells of the size of
the college estate : ‘40 acres of land in Nether
Acaster in Yorkshire,’ on a part of which ‘ their
college was built,’ the 40 acres ‘to be enjoyed
by the provost and fellows.’? This land, it
appears, belonged to John Stillington,® whose son
Robert, either with the consent of his father or
after he had inherited the property, erected and
endowed the college.

Robert, the founder, in 1466 was elevated to
the bishopric of Bath and Wells, and the year
after his consecration he was made Lord Chan-
cellor. He took part in the rebellion of Lambert
Simnel, and when that imposture came to nothing
was committed as a prisoner to Windsor Castle,
where he died in May 1491.4

The college of Acaster which Stillington had
founded was dedicated to the honour of St.
Andrew.’ It was founded for a provost and
three priests or fellows,® one of whom was to be
a schoolmaster.’ So says the Chantry Certificate,
but as a fact all three fellows were schoolmasters.*

The provost and the three fellows in priests’
orders were to pray ‘for the souls of King
Edward IV, his wife the Queen, his son the
Prince, the Founder, and all Christian souls.’ ®

The endowments of the college were valued

in 1535 at £33 10s. 4d. gross and £27 135. 4d.

8 Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3265, Ixxiv, 56.

°° York. Mus. case E iii, K. vi.

'*About 1470’ (A. F. Leach, Early Yorks. Sch. ii,
p- v). Speed gives dedication as St. Mary and St.
John Baptist, and foundation by Robert of Leicester.

? Tanner, op. cit. 6go.

3 Parl. R.vi,256. Mr. Leach says he was ‘of York’
and owned the manor of Acaster (op. cit. ii, p. xxi).

* Angl. Sacra, i, $75.

° Dugdale, Mon. Angi. viii, 1473. Probably so
dedicated because of the dedication of Wells Cathedral
(Leach, op. cit. p. xxvii).

® Ibid.

’ Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 240.

® Leach, Yorks. Sch. ii, 89, 90, quoting from Parl.
R. v, 256 ; V.C.H. Yorks. i, 453.

° Yorks. Chant. Surv. 1546 (Surt. Soc.), 240.

360

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

net per annum.’ In 1546 the valuation was
put down as £35 12s. 114d., the various items
making up the sum being minutely particularized.™
In the survey of 1548 the college ‘goods’ were
assessed at 175. 4d. and the ‘plate’ as being
1g oz. ‘ parcell gylte.’ The previous survey of
1546 had given the ‘goods’ as being of the value
of £1 17s, 5d. and the ‘ plate’ £4 75. 7d.

The commissioners recommended that the
school should be continued, and that the school-
master, William Gegoltson, should remain in
the dual capacity of master and curate, his salary
being fixed at £8 per annum.” The reason for
Gegoltson’s retention as an assistant parish priest
was that the college was distant from the parish
church (Stillingfleet) one mile, that in Acaster
there were 200 houseling people, and that ‘the
ryver of Owse, which is a great stream,’ ran
‘betwixt the said College and the Parish Church
and in that place without a bridge.’

In the former survey an imperfect and, in
parts, illegible memorandum is appended, show-
ing that a chantry had been founded and en-
dowed at the college by Sir William Maleverer,
apparently in March,1520-1.

At the suppression William Alcocke was pro-
vost, a man of the age of sixty-seven. He was
‘indifferently learned,’ and enjoyed a stipend of
£10 a year with ‘no other living.’ The three
fellows were William Barton, John Rawdon,
and William Gegoltson the schoolmaster.
Barton was sixty-three years of age, and Rawdon
forty-nine, their stipends being at the rate of £6
a year each, and neither of them possessed any
other preferment. Gegoltson was thirty-eight ;
his income was {5 a year, and he also was no
pluralist. He was ‘indifferently learned,’ but
was still carrying on his work in 1571.38

198. COLLEGE OF HOWDEN

The church of St. Peter? at Howden was
given at the Conquest to the Prior and convent
of Durham.? In the year 1265 the living was
valued at 275 marks,’ and the Prior of Durham 4
made an attempt to convert the rectory into a
religious community of sixteen monks. This
was not effected, however, but on 11 March

" Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 240-2.

” Tbid. ii, p. x.

8 Leach, op. cit. ii, 100.

' The old ascription was St. Peter and St. Paul.
Murray is certainly in error in calling it St. Cuthbert’s
(Yorks. Handbk. 114), and equally without foundation
is the dedication ‘St. John’ (Pat. 17 Edw. III, pt. i,
m. 31). There was a ‘St. John’s’ prebend and a
‘St. Cuthbert’s’ chantry in the church.

? Lawton, Coll. Rerum Eccl. 345.

3 Hutchinson, Guide to Howden, quoting Stowe MS,
in Brit. Mus.

4 Hugh de Darlington, 1258-72.

3 361

1267, because the parish was wide and large,
and the revenues sufficient to maintain ‘ many
spiritual men,’® Archbishop Giffard, with the
consent of the Prior and convent of Durham,
and at the petition of the Dean and Chapter of
York, made the church collegiate.* He ordained
that there should be five prebendaries, each of
whom was to provide at his own cost a priest-
vicar. These prebendaries were to have the
cure of souls, which they were to administer by
their respective priests, who were to dress in
canonical habit like the York priests, and observe
the same method of singing which obtained at
York, except matins, which they were to say in
the morning for the parish.’ One of these pre-
bendal priests was to be rector chori. ‘The three
chantry priests of St. Thomas, St. Mary, and
St. Katharine, were also to be present at the
hours, processions, and high mass; and other
altars were in no case to be assigned to the
prebendal vicars, lest the number of priests pre-
sent at the college services should be diminished ;
they were rather to be augmented.* Each
chantry priest was to have one mark yearly
in addition to the stipend he received as cantarist.

This establishment of a college would naturally
mean loss to the Durham monastery ; and com-
pensation was given to the prior and convent
from lands belonging to Howden.

The remainder of the Howden possessions
were to form a common fund which was to be
equally divided among the canons. ‘The canons
were to be residentiary, the period of residence
being three months yearly, either continuously
or at several times. The patronage of the pre-
bends was to belong to the priory of Durham,
the canons to be instituted and inducted by the
archbishops, or to be presented to the dean and
chapter during a vacancy of the archiepiscopal
see. The area of the churchyard was to be
divided among the canons in equal portions for
their residence, and the houses then existing were
to be converted for the use of the quire.

The five prebends had territorial names as-
signed to them—Howden, Barnby, Thorpe,
Skelton (or Laxton), and Saltmarshe ; and, in
order that no disputes as to precedence might
arise, Archbishop Giffard also ordained that in
the quire and processions the following order
should be observed: on the south side (1) the
prebendary of Howden, called the first prebend,
was to have the first place; (2) Thorpe, the
third prebend, was to come next ; (3) Saltmarshe,
the fifth prebend, followed ; and (4) the cantarist
of St. Thomas’s altar. On the north side (1)
the prebendary of Barnby, the second, was to have
the first place; (2) Skelton alias Laxton, the
fourth prebend, came next ; (3) the priest of the
altar of St. Mary followed ; and (4) the priest of

° Torre’s MS. fol. 1077.
* Lawton, Coll. Rerum Eccl. 345.
”Torre’s MS. fol. 1077. ® Tbid.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the altar of St. Katharine came last.? A sixth
prebend was created later, on 29 January 1279—
that of Skipwith. Its holder with his priest
would occupy the fifth place on either side in
quire and processions.

Noprovost or warden wasappointed, but the pre-
bendary of Howden was named the first, and was
“freed from the cure of souls and made a simple
and pure prebend only.’ This would seem to
imply that he was intended to be regarded as the
‘head.’ For his maintenance there was assigned
the tithe of hay, wool, and lambs of the towns
of Howden, Knedlington, and Barnhill. The
other prebends were all endowed with assign-
ments of tithes from the districts from which
they took their titles. These arrangements were
precise and elaborate, but they evidently did not
work perfectly as far as the parish was concerned,
and on 2 February 1319 Archbishop Melton
ordained a perpetual vicarage of Howden, the
incumbent to have the cure of souls which were
‘impendent’ on the prebend of Howden. His
stipend was to be 10 marks a year.”

In addition to the three chantries already
mentioned, a fourth was founded at the altar of
St. Cuthbert in the year 1405 to be in the
patronage, unlike the others, ‘of the Chapter of
the Church of Howden.’ There was also a
fifth chantry at the altar of St. Andrew."

About the middle of the 14th century there
appears to have been disturbance with the priory
authorities at Durham with reference to the
appointments to prebends. ‘The king had made
several presentations to various stalls, and the
priory disputed the legality of the appointments,
prosecuting appeals at Rome.’? The quarrel in
the end was settled by the archbishop, whose
judgement was confirmed afterwards by the king."

In 1535 the value of the college is given as
£96 85. 104d. gross, and net {61 2s. 104d."

The collegiate church was not touched at the
dissolution of the monasteries, but it fell at the
suppression of the chantries, and a certificate of
the house by John Bellow, the king’s surveyor
in the East Riding, temp. Edward VI, gives the
names and ages of the various prebendaries, vicars,
and chantry priests, the value of the prebends
and the pensions assigned to their holders, as well
as any cures to which they were then appointed.

The 13th-century seal’® is a vesica, with a
design of St. Peter seated, blessing and holding a
book. The legend is :—

s’ COMMVNE CANONIC . . . ECCL’E D’ HOVEDENE

® Torre’s MS. fol. 1078.

York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 482.

" Torre’s MS. fol. 1093.

* Pat. 17 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 35 ; 18 Edw. III,
pt. ii, m. 48d. 35, 27 5 19 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 28.

* Ibid. 19 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 24.

“ Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 136-8.

® Chant. Cert. 119.

* Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3299, lxxiv, 59.

199. KIRKBY OVERBLOW

The church of All Saints, Kirkby Overblow,
in 1362 was made collegiate. Henry, Lord
Percy, had just died, and his executors, Sir
Richard Tempest and William de Newport,
rector of Spofforth, on 5 November asked that
the church should be converted into a college.
Two days later the rector of Kirkby joined in
the petition, and, licence having been already
obtained from the king, Archbishop Thoresby
made an ordination to that effect.!

The existing rector, Robert de Ede, and his
successors were ever afterwards to be called pro-
vosts. They were still to exercise the cure of
souls in the parish, to have the full government
of the church, to administer its finance, and bear
all burdens incumbent upon the church. In
addition to the provost there were to be four
chaplains; but, whilst the ordination provided
that they were to ‘celebrate masses and other
divine offices for ever’ therein, their sphere of
work was principally to be elsewhere. One of
them was to be a ‘parson’ in the cathedral
church of York, where he was to celebrate for
the souls of the archbishop and of Henry de
Percy, Mary his wife, their progenitors and
successors. ‘The three other chaplains were also
to have their altars away from Kirkby. The
founders of the college were buried in the monas-
tery of Alnwick, near the castle. In the castle
chapel the three chaplains were to celebrate their
masses, &c., perpetually. The patronage was to
be in the hands of the two executors, and after-
wards was to be exercised by the heirs of one of
them,? William de Newport, the cantarists to be
canonically instituted by the Archbishops of
York.

The ordination of Archbishop Thoresby was
exceptionally detailed with reference to the ser-
vices to be performed, each day of the week
having its allotted masses and prayers. On
Sundays one of the chaplains was to celebrate the
office of the dead, the second the mass of the
Holy Trinity, the third for the souls of the two
founders. On Mondays one was to say mass
for the dead, the second the mass of the Holy
Angels, the third the founders’ mass. On Tues-
days all three were to celebrate for the souls of
the founders. On Wednesdays one was to say
mass for the dead, the second the mass of St. John
the Evangelist, the third the founders’ mass. On
Thursdays one was to celebrate the office of the
dead, the second the mass of Corpus Christi, the
third for the founders’ souls. On Fridays one
was to say mass for the dead, the second the mass

'Thoresby, in Vicaria Leodiensis, 193, gives the
date of the ordination erroneously as 10 Nov. 1364.
It was in 1362.

? See Torre’s MS., however, where the patrons are
the Percys, Earls of Northumberland (York, pt. ii,
fol. 182).

362

RELIGIOUS

of the Holy Cross, the third for the founders.
On Saturdays one was to celebrate for the de-
parted, the second to say the mass of St. Mary
the Virgin, the third the founders’ mass. So the
services were to go on from day to day, regularly
and uninterruptedly, unless the chaplains were
hindered by any lawful cause or by the feasts of
the nine lections. On all festivals they were to
say for the souls of the founders Placebo, Dirige,
and other offices of the dead.?

For their stipends these chaplains were to have
£40 a year, that is to say each of them was
to be paid £2 Ios. quarterly, out of the revenues
of the church of Kirkby Overblow, by the
provost.*

As was usual in the case of a parish church
becoming collegiate, recompense was made to the
cathedral church for any damage it might have
suffered through the appropriation. In this in-
stance an annual pension of £1 was to be paid
by the provost to the archbishop, and another of
10s. to the dean and chapter.

The rector, now dignified by the title ‘ pro-
vost,’ went on working afterwards practically as
before as parochial rector, assisted by a priest who
had to minister in the chapel-of-ease at Stain-
burn, 3 miles distant from the parish church.’
After he had paid the various stipends, £20 to
the chaplains, £1 ros. to the cathedral, £3 6s. 8d.
to the priest-in-charge at Stainburn, and other
charges amounting to 115. 6d., £20 was left for
his own stipend.®

At what period the rector became responsible
for the chapel at Stainburn is not known, but in
the Chantry Survey of 1548 the chapel is said to
have been ‘used tyme out of mynde as paryshe
church for th’ ease of th’ inhabitants of Stayne-
burne.’” The 1546 survey gives an account of
the chantry of our Lady in York Minster, ‘ of
the fundacion of Henry Percye, Erle of North-
umberland, and Mary his wyffe,’ but in the
. Surtees Society’s volume ® there is an unfortunate
note as to the identity of this earl which is very
misleading. In 1546 John Aske was incumbent
of the chantry, of which the goods were valued
at 15s. 10d, and the plate at £1 19s. The
chantry itself was valued at £5 yearly, coming
out of the parsonage of Kirkby Overblow, and
7s. from a tenement in Imbergate.

The chantry of our Lady was in existence, it
seems, before 1362, and wassimply refounded at

° Torre’s MS. (York, pt. ii), fol. 181.

* The figures are indistinct in Torre’s MS. Those
here given are supplied by Speight in his book on
Kirkby Overblow. But they seem excessive when
the total income of the church is taken into account.
Moreover they are doub/e the amounts given in the
Valor and the Chantry Survey.

° Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 398.

® Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 37.

” Yorks. Chant. Surv. loc. cit. ® Ibid. 21.

® See Torre’s MS. (York, pt. ii), fol. 181.

HOUSES

that time by the executors of the originators of
the collegiate church of Kirkby.’°

Provosts #

Robert Ede, instituted rector 1 Mar. 1361,
became first provost 1362”

Peter de Wellom, instituted 15 Dec. 1362

William de Woderove, instituted 10 Feb.
1364

Robert de Spytell, instituted 10 Mar. 1364

Thomas de Walton, instituted 7 Oct. 1373 °

Roger de Waldeby, instituted 16 Dec. 1374

Thomas Sparrowe of Watton, instituted
21 Dec, 1382
William Sparrowe of Watton, instituted

17 Jan. 1383
Thomas de Anlaby, instituted 8 June 1387
John Whitwell, instituted 24 July 1394
William Farman, instituted 17 Apr. 1397
John Nesse, instituted 9 Oct. 1428
Robert Staynley, instituted 24 Nov. 1428
John Dene, instituted 19 May 1442
William Bowre, instituted 3 Jan. 1451
Nicholas Rawdon, instituted Mar. 1462 ¥
Richard Nunde, instituted 4 Mar. 146678
George Oughtred, instituted 17 May 1475”
Thomas Poole, instituted 24 Sept. 1496
Thomas Lakyn, S.T.P., instituted vicar

20 Dec. 1573?

200. THE HOSPITAL OR COLLEGIATE
CHAPEL OF LAZENBY ?

On 19 February 1290 a collegiate establish-
ment was founded at Lazenby, in the parish of
Northallerton, for a master and six chaplains,
by John de Lythegranes and Alice his wife.
Lawton identifies this place with the Lazenby in
the parish of Wilton,® but its chapel is called in
the 1546 survey ‘the Chapell of Lasynbye in
the saide paroche of Northalverton.’

” Fabric R. of York Minster (Surt. Soc.), 295.

" Torre’s MS. (York, pt. ii), fol. 181.

™ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1199. Edeand the next
three provosts are said by Torre to have been ap-
pointed by Ric. Tempest, mil.

'3 Appointed by the ‘ Attorney of Hen. Percy.’

“ Waldeby and the nine following provosts were
presented by ‘Henry Percy, mil.’

® Presented by George, Duke of Clarence.

7 Presented by Henry, Earl of Northumberland.

* Presented by the feoffees of Henry, Earl of
Northumberland.

1° Lakyn was said to have succeeded Richard Poole
(Speight, Kirkby Overblow, 56). Possibly this Richard
Poole was the last provost and first post-suppression
vicar.

‘It is usually referred to in records as the Aospita/
of Lazenby, but it seems to have been rather a
collegiate chapel than a true hospital.

* Lawton, Religious Houses, 108.

363

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

It was founded for the celebration of masses
and other divine services for the souls of the
founders and all Christian peeple, dedicated in
honour of the Blessed Virgin, and endowed with
the whole manor of Lazenby.

Whether the original intention was ever fully
carried out is not known. It probably was
attempted, but in the course of years the endow-
ment was found to be inadequate. At all
events, on 7 November 1443 it was declared
that, whereas John de Lythegranesand Alice his
wife built a chapel, and purposed to found a
chantry of six chaplains in the manor of Lazenby,
and endow the same with the manor and the
property, they were unable, through death, to
carry out the scheme.*? The implication of this
statement must be that their intentions were not
fully realized, and, as the issues of the manor
were insufficient for the purpose, the king granted
licence to Robert Nevill, Bishop of Durham,
and Nicholas Hulme, to assign the manor to the
abbey of Jervaulx, the said monastery to supply
two chaplains to perform service in the said
chapel. Nicholas Hulme had been appointed to
the mastership on g April 1425,‘ and was prob-
ably still master in 1443, and the effect of this
new licence would seem to have been that the
chapel lost its collegiate character, and became a
simple chantry chapel for two priests supplied
from the abbey of Jervaulx. No master, at all
events, is heard of after Nicholas Hulme.

The patronage of the college evidently be-
lonzed to the see of Durham, for we find that
Richard de Clyfford was appointed by the king
in 1382, receiving the mastership at his nomina-
tion because the temporalities of the see of
Durham were in his hands ‘through void-
ance.” >

Pope Urban VI reserved to himself all benefices
of papal chaplains,® but when he was succeeded,
2 November 1389, by Boniface IX,’ it was
found that the ‘Chapel of S. Mary, Lasynby, in
the diocese of York,’ which had become vacant
through the death of John Moubray, papal chap-
lain, had not been filled. Pope Boniface there-
fore claimed the right of presentation, and on
14 February 1390 Roger Whyte was provided
with the said wardenship, value 20 marks, not-
withstanding the fact that he already had the
vicarage of Middleton of the same value, and that
Pope Boniface had already made provision for
him of canonries, with the expectation of pre-
bends of St. John’s, Beverley, and St. Mary’s,
Southwell.§ Whyte’s tenure of Lazenby was
not, however, a long one, for Thomas Haxey

* Pat. 22 Hen. VI, pt. i, m. 5:

‘ Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 240.

* Pat. 6 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 13.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, iv, 3 34.

" Stapleton, Holy Trinity Priory, 178 n.
* Cal. of Papal Letters, iv, 3353

was appointed to the mastership 25 Octobe
1391.° In 1425 Thomas Haxey, the master, died
and in his will he left to the chapel of Lazenb:
a sum of £10 ‘for repairs." Nicholas Hulme
already referred to, was Haxey’s successor. He
was collated to the mastership immediately
after Haxey’s death, and a brass in Greathan
Hospital, co. Durham, commemorates his life anc
work."!

After 1443 there were simply two chantry
priests at Lazenby. In 1535 they had as thei
stipends {9 6s. 8d.,!* the same amount mentioned
in the 1546 survey, where the heading appears
as ‘The Chaunterie of the two Prestes in the
chapel of Lasynbye.’'¥ The two priests at that
time were John Wylde and Richard Woodehall.
The chapel is described as being 2 miles from
the parish church, the goods valued at 145., and
the plate at £1 85.4 In the 1548 certificate
Wilde is said to have been sixty years of age
and Woodehall fifty,’® of ‘good qualities and
condicions’ but of ‘meane lerenyng,’ their joint
stipends ‘goinge furth of the possessions of the
late monastery of Jarvaux’ being £9 65. 8d., the
outgoings being 18s. 8d., and the clear income,
therefore, eight guineas,

Masters

Geoffrey, occurs 1294 1°

John de Eboraco, occurs 1316

John de Sleghte, or Slight, occurs 1316,'8
1318)?

Richard de Wellinton, occurs 1361 ™

Richard de Clyfford, appointed 1382 2!

Henry Godebarn, occurs 1384 ”

John Moubray, died 1389

Roger Whyte, appointed 1390 *4

Thomas Haxey, appointed 1391,”° died
1425 %

Nicholas Hulme, appointed 1425,2” occurs
1443”

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1474.

° Fabric R. of York Minster (Surt. Soc), 20 C:
4 Longstaffe, Darlington, 208.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1474.

" Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 122.
“ Thid. 123.

* Ibid. 486.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, 118.

” Pat. g Edw. II, pte im.-7,

* Ibid. 10 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 22.

* Ibid. 12 Edw. IL, pt. i, m. 24.

* Cal. of Papal Pet. 384.

" Pat. 6 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 13.

* Ibid. 7 Ric. I, pt. ii, m. 23.

* Cal. of Papal Letters, iv, 335.

* Tbid.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1474.

* Durham Epis. Reg. Langley, fol. 12<.
” Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 240. —
* Pat. 22 Hen. VI, pt. i, m. 15.

364

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

201. LOWTHORPE COLLEGIATE
CHURCH

In the early years of Edward III there appear
to have been, at Lowthorpe, a number of people
‘attached to the worship of the Trinity and
5. Mary’ who were desirous to have daily
service in their church,’ so Sir John de
Heselarton, the patron, obtained royal licence on
26 January 1333 to alienate the advowson to
seven chaplains who were to celebrate mass
daily, as the patron should appoint.

On 25 and 27 March 1333 the patron and
the rector, Robert de Alesby, placed the church
at the absolute disposal of the Archbishop of
York, to make whatever ordinances he should
wish for the future governance of the church;
and on 3 May the king confirmed the statutes
which had been drawn up with the advice of the
dean and chapter. These ordinances secured a
regular succession of rectors who were to celebrate
mass at least thrice a week and be responsible
for the charges and management of the church.
There were also to be six perpetual chantries
bearing the names of the Holy Trinity, St.
Mary, the archbishop, the chapter, the founder,
the patron ; and on 14 October 1364 a seventh
chantry was founded.?

At the third chantry masses were to be said
for the archbishops, past, present, and future, and
also for Edward II. At chantry no. 4 there
were to be celebrations for the deans and canons
‘quick and dead’ and their successors, and also
for Sir William de Ros the second, ‘sometime
lord of Hamlak.’* Chantries nos. 5 and 6 were
founded for masses for the founder, Sir John, his
wife Margery, their children, heirs, parents, and
also for John de Hotham,‘ Bishop of Ely.

In addition to the rector there were to be six
perpetual priests and three clerks, two of them
deacons, or at least one a deacon and the other a
sub-deacon. ‘They were to wear surplices, to
say the canonical services, or at least on ferial
days to say matins, high mass, and vespers, and,
on the feasts of the nine lections, the hour of
prime. Qn double feasts and Sundays they were
to chant high mass and all the hours. Further
ordinances were made for special masses for the
dead, for the places in the quire of the priests,
and for their dress.

Their clothes were to be of cloth, ‘either
black or the nearest shade to that colour,’ or of
‘cainet’ not ‘approximating to red or green’;
they were to wear ‘black surcoats’ fastened and
‘without Jirri,’ and ‘other garments fastened
from the top.’ They were to live in common
in a house in the rectory ; to bear themselves

1 Pat. 7 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 9g.

? Torre’s MS. fol. 1018.

° Helmsley.

‘ The patronage was in the hands of the Hotham
family for some time.

lowly and reverently ; to swear obedience to t
rector, and never be absent without his perm
sion. For their sustenance the priests had in t
rectory a ‘hall,’ chambers, kitchen, bakehou
brewhouse, and a loft. Turbary for sufficie
peat was provided, and an annual stipend

64 marks each. ‘The two deacons were to ha
40s. each per year, and the third clerk had

live ‘of the holy water’—aqua benedicta—p
quisites, and parishioners’ alms.

The church continued with such a constit
tion for more than two centuries, passing und
turbed through the times of the dissolution of t
monasteries. Confidence in its continued ex
tence appears to have. prevailed at a time wh
other ecclesiastical institutions seemed insecu
for on 10 June 1543 Hezakiah Clifton of Burts
Agnes left ‘to the Colledge of Lowthorpe, 20s
But the end came at the suppression of chantrie
&c., for, in August 1552, we find in an invento
of the goods belonging to ‘the College of Lov
thorpe in the countye of Yorke’ that itis referr:
to as the ‘said late colledge,’ the corn beit
valued at £65 125. 4d., ‘certen cattell’
£12 5s. 8d., and ‘certen utensyles of hu
bandrye’ at £83 6s. 6d.®

Recrors oF LowTHorPe’

Robert de Alesby, last parochial rector, it
stituted 26 Apr. 1331

Thomas de Riplingham, Nov. 1333

Robert de Alesby, 23 May 1335

John de Killum, 9 Sept. 1349

John de Knapton, 21 Dec. 1354

Roger de Barton, 4 Aug. 1357

Thomas de Lowthorp, 13 Oct. 1363

John de Ingleby

Robert de Bynton, 16 Dec. 1372

Richard de Malton

John de Westhead, 17 Mar. 1392

John de Dyghton, 20 June 1394

Thomas Brasse, 1 Mar. 1407

William Blaunche, 25 Sept. 1409

Thomas Taylor, 6 Oct. 1430

Thomas Percebrig, 13 Dec. 1437

John Sutton, 15 July 1439

Richard Bramston

John Regill, 23 July 1444

Henry Feron, 11 Nov. 1450

William Rowghshawe,® 30 Oct. 1473

William Warde, 23 Mar. 1486

William Rawkeshawe, S.T.B., 2 Apr. 1490

William Thompson, 1 Mar. 1504

Robert Wade

John Braynsby,° 3 July 1536

° Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), vi, 174.

° Invent. of Ch. Goods, Yorks. (Surt. Soc.), 85.

” Torre’s MS. ; the dates are those of institution.
® Appointed by four chaplains.

* Appointed by Henry VIII.

365

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

202. THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF
MIDDLEHAM

The collegiate foundation at Middleham was
one of the abortive schemes of Richard III
while Duke of Gloucester. Letters Patent were
granted by Edward IV in 1478, empowering
the duke to found at Middleham a collegiate
body to consist of a dean, six chaplains, four
clerks, six choristers, and another ‘clerk sacris-
tane’ for parochial ministrations. The scheme
was approved by Archbishop Lawrence Booth,”
and the parish church made collegiate, and
exempted from the jurisdiction of the Arch-
deacon of Richmond, Statutes were compiled
for the governance of the collegiate church, and
the dean and six chaplains were appointed by the
founder, but the college was not endowed, and
collapsed with the fall of its founder, before it
had been fairly set on foot.

The appointment of the first dean and chap-
lains was made by the founder, and it may be of
interest in passing to call attention to the
arrangement in the statutes? that in mass and
quire offices, the uses of the cathedral church of
Salisbury were to be followed and not those of
York. The duke’s appointment to the decanal
and other stalls was as follows '? :—

I the said Duc statute, make, and ordeyne by th
auctoritie forsaid, [the licence of Edward IV] that
hereafter no maner persons by me or myne heirez,
have or shal have graunt to be deane of my said
Collage y’unto admitted affore he be prest, . . . and
the deane to be admitted by the said sex prests, the
eldest of yeme to geve hyme his othe at high altare
to be true deane and master y’, and observe and kep
all ordinannces and statutez and laudable custumes,
and ye right and libertees y’of defend at his power,
and y’after to say De profundis affore ye high altare,
w' this collect Deus cui proprium—-following the antetem
Fundatoris mei, etc., and y’opon bring hyme to his
stall and put hyme in possession of the same ; and the
said prests by ye deane to be admitted after the forme
and othe among oy’s hereafter folowing.

Also, yat the saide Sir William Beverley, dean, and
his successours, have ye principall place and stall of
the right side of the high quere of my said Collage,
which stall I wil be called oure Lady stall; and Sir
Laurence Squier forsaide, the first prest y' shalbe
admitted thereto occupie the principall place and stall
on the left side of the said quere, and yat stall to be
called Saint George stall; and the said Sir William
Symson, secund prest, in the next stall to the deane on
ye said right side, and y' stall to be named Seynt
Kateryn stall; and the forsaide Sir Richard Cutler,
therd prest, the secund stall on the saide left side,
that stall to be called Saint Ninian stall; and Sir
William Buntyng to for rehersid, the fourt prest, the
thirde stall on the ye (sic) said right side, the same

” Pat. 17 Edw. IV, pt. ii, m. 16.

4 Athill, The Collegiate Church of Middleham (Camd.
Soc.), Appendix (B), 63, &c.

” Printed Arch. Fourn. xiv, 161, &c.

8 Tbid.

to be called Seint Cuthbert stall; and Sir Hugh
Leverhede above writen, ye fift prest, the third stall
on the said left side, the saide stall to be called Seint
Antony stall ; and Sir John Bell above writyn, the
sext prest, the fourt stall on the saide right side, and
yat to be called Seint Barbara stall ; and two of the
saide clerks on the saide right side, and ye oy’ two
clerks and the clerk sacristane beneth yeme on the
left side, at the assignacion of ye said dean ; and the
sex queresters yere places accordingly as ye saide deane
shal assigne yeme.

(Successors to occupy and ‘ be always admytte
by the deane to ye stall of hym beyng voide.’)

Although no further appointments were made
to the chaplaincies, the church continued nomin-
ally collegiate, with its dean and the ‘minister
for divine service’ or ‘clerk sacristan’ till
about 1830, when the dean, Dr. P. S. Wood,
made appointments to the six chaplaincies, or
“canonries’ as they were termed, and instituted
a ‘cathedral service’ in the church. The last
of these ‘canons’ (one of whom had been the
Rev. Charles Kingsley) died in 1897. On the
death of Dean Wood in 1856 the decanal office
and the peculiar were both suppressed, and the
incumbent has since been rector only. The
deans had, however, exercised a peculiar juris-
diction independent in many respects of the
archbishop until 1856. Marriage licences were
granted, wills proved, &c., and the deans were
admitted to a stall in the quire and vote in
chapter by one of the neighbouring clergy by
authority of a royal mandate.”

203. ST. CLEMENT’S COLLEGIATE
CHAPEL, PONTEFRACT

This church of St. Clement was a free chapel
royal, exempt from all episcopal and archidiaconal
jurisdiction. It was situated within the castle
of Pontefract and was founded by Ilbert! de
Lacy. The college was founded for a dean and
three prebendaries,’? and was well endowed by the
founder. ‘The purpose of the foundation of the
college was* to ‘the intent that God should
be served in the said Castle, to have mass and
other divine services . . . and to minister all
sacraments and sacramentalls to all within the
Park of Pountfrett, (and) the Bedhouse called
S. Nicholas’ Hospital Bulhouse.’ 4

The Pope Nicholas’ Taxation ® in 1291 says
that ‘the Castle Chapel was divided into four

“ The Antig. xxxiii, 162.

% Thid.

* Athill, The Collegiate Church of Middleham (passim).

‘The Chantry Certificate misnames him Hubert
(Yorks. Chant. Surv. [Surt. Soc.], 323).

* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 1474.

® Yorks. Chant. Surv, (Surt. Soc.), 323.

‘ An evident clerical error for Bedehouse.

* Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 2986.

366

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

prebends,’ and it fortunately gives. particu-

lars :—
sd,
Prebenda Magri Jacobi de Ispannya 17 6 8
Prebenda Ade de Poterton - - 13 6 8
Prebenda filii Theobaldi de Luco - 13 6 8
Prebenda Prioris de Pontefracto - 10 0 0

The four prebends were the deanery and the
three prebends of the foundation charter, for
James de Ispannya was dean® in 1298. The
third prebend, at this time held by the Prior of
Pontefract, was afterwards ‘apparently entirely
swallowed up by the Priory.’”

In 1399 the dean of this college, John Bose-
vyle, received a grant for life of all the land of
John de Bathe, citizen and weaver of London, in
the parish of St. Botolph within Aldersgate,
London. Without the royal licence, Bathe had
bequeathed the land to the parson of St. Botolph’s
for the maintenance of a chantry. It was,
therefore, forfeit to the king, who presented it
to the dean at Pontefract to the annual value of
7 marks, the surplus to be passed on to the
king, and Bosevyle was to celebrate for the soul
of John de Bathe.®

As has been stated, there were three prebends
in the college, though the founder’s charter
mentions only two parsons, whose names were
Ranulph Grammaticus and Godfrey. These
two prebends are referred to in 26 Henry VIII,
one of them consisting of the tithes in Campsall,
&c., with a pension from the Prior of Nostell,
and worth in all £14 16s. 4d. a year, the other
consisting of tithes at Allerton, Newton, Castle-
ford, Fryston, &c., and worth £13 8s. 8d. a year.
There was also a chantry priest—the third pre-
bendary, possibly—who received £5 a year,
and the deanery was valued at £15 155. 3d.

In the 1546 report of the Commissioners the
deanery is assessed at {22 12s. 7d., the various
items making up the amount being given in
detail. A separate return is made of the two
prebends. One is called ‘The Prebende or
Chantrie of Ade (Adam) de Potterton,’ and the
other that of ‘Theobalde de Luce in the saide
Fre Chapell.”, Richard Weston was prebendary
of the former, his stipend from certain specified
lands, &c., being £15 35., the outgoings
£1 gs. 73d. leaving a clear balance of
£13 135. 44d. The goods were valued at
£2 11s. 6d. and the plate at £4 8s. anda note
is given that ‘the incumbents are not resident

but by deputies.”!2 The prebendary of the

* Exch. Memo. R. (L.T.R.), 25 & 26 Edw. I, m.
ford.

” Yorks. Sch. ii, 14.

® Pat. 1 Hen. IV, pt. v, m. 36.

® Fox, Pontefract, 288.

1 Tbid.

" Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 323-4.

" Thid. 324-5.

other chantry was John Stringar, whose net
income was {11 18s. 534.18

Before the dissolution of the monasteries the
college had been practically annexed to the priory
of Pontefract, the prior being also the dean.
At the dissolution the college reverted to the
status quo ante, but was not long allowed to enjoy
its recovered independence, for it was entirely
suppressed as from Easter 1548 under the
Chantries Act."

DEans
Mag. James de Ispannya, occurs 1291,
1298
Mag. Michael de Northburgh, appointed 21
May 1339”

John Bosevyle, occurs 1399

Dom. Thos. Wykersley, appointed c. 1420

Mag. John de Waynflete, appointed c. 1420 ”

Mag. John Thorneton, appointed c. 14307

Mag. John. Lathom, appointed c. 1440”
occurs 1445 78

James Thwaytes, died Oct. 1545

Francys Malett, D.D., occurs 1546

204. COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF
ST. PETER AND ST. WILFRID,
RIPON

The collegiate church of Ripon had its be-
ginning in a monastery of monks following the
Scottish rule, who received a grant of the place
called Inrhypum from the Northumbrian king,
Alchfrith, about the year 660.1 This establish-
ment, of which Eata was abbot, and Cuthbert
guest-master, was granted by Alchfrith not long
after its foundation to Wilfrid, and was aban-
doned by the Scottish monks, who were dis-
inclined to accept the changes involved by
Wilfrid’s preference for Gallican customs.?
During the stormy life of Wilfrid, Ripon was his
favourite residence. He here raised his basilica
of dressed stone, with columned arcades and
aisles,* and called together the two Northumbrian
kings, with the abbots, governors, and under-
kings of their realm, to its consecration in

8 Ibid. 325.

™ Yorks. Sch. ii, p. xiv.

® Tbid. 4. 6 Tbid. p. xiv.

Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 226.

® Pat. 1 Hen. IV, pt. v, m. 36.

® Boothroyd, Pontefract, 363.

0 Tbid. "1 Thid. * Thid.

* Holmes, Black Friars of Pontefract, 22.

* Boothroyd, loc. cit.

*® Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 323.

* Bede, Vita S. Cuthberti, cap. vii (printed in
Mem. of Ripon [Surt. Soc.], i, 2, 3).

* Bede, Hist. Eccl., lib. iii, cap. 25 (Mem. of Ripon
(Surt. Soc.], i, 3, 4).

* Eddius, Vita S. Wilfridi, cap. xvi (Mem. of Ripon
[Surt. Soc.], i, 10).

367

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

honour of St. Peter. In 681, during Wilfrid’s
first banishment, Eadhaed was consecrated bishop
with his see at Ripon. This bishopric, however,
ceased with the restoration of Wilfrid in 686.5
Ripon and Hexham were the possessions left to
Wilfrid by the decision of the synod of Nidd in
705 ;° and to Ripon his body was brought from
Oundle four years later.’

Such indications as we gain of the life of
Wilfrid’s monastery at Ripon point to the pro-
bability that the constitution of the collegiate
church in the Middle Ages was derived from it
with little interruption, and that the chapter of
seven canons was a gradual development from the
original foundation, involving no fundamental
change, apart from a slackening of the rule
under which Wilfrid’s community seems to have
lived. As at York and Beverley, Athelstan
was regarded as the great benefactor of the
church and as the donor of its privilege of
sanctuary, which here, as at Beverley, was valid
within an area of a mile in every direction from
the town.® The charter of Athelstan, preserved
in more than one form, bears a strong resem-
blance to the similar Beverley charter, and con-
tains a similar grant of liberties ‘in all thyngges

. as free as herte may thynk or eghe may se.’ !°
No original copy of this charter exists, and it is
probable that this and the rimed charter of
Beverley were composed in the 13th century as
a memoria technica of the privileges of the two
churches." In spite of the favour shown to
Ripon by Athelstan, the harrying of Northumbria
by his son Eadred about 948 was marked by the
burning of the minster, in the ruins of which
Wilfrid’s body remained, exposed to desecration.”

* Eddius, Vita S. Wilfridi, cap. xvi (Mem. of Ripon
(Surt. Soc.], i, 10). The dedication appears to have
been the usual dedication to St. Peter and St. Paul ;
see Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 162.

* Bede, Hist. Eccl. lib. iv, cap. 12 ; Eddius, op. cit.
cap. xliv (Mem. of Ripon [Surt. Soc.]}, ii, 14, 17).

* Eddius, op. cit. cap. Ix (Mem. of Ripon (Surt.
Soc.], i, 19).

_ 7 Authorities printed in Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.),
i, 19, 20.

“It is noticeable that Wilfrid, before his last jour-
ney, constituted Tatberht ‘ prepositus’ of the ‘ ceno-
bium’ (Eddius, op. cit. cap. Ixii) ; and it is just
possible that such an office may have been an early
correspondent to that of provost, which is found
Permanently at Beverley, and for a time at York,
after the Conquest. The head of Wilfrid’s “ceno-
bium,” however, was an abbot until the time of the
Danish invasions; and no absolute identification of
his monastery with the later college is possible,

* Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 23. 3c.

The variants of the charter, with a facsimile, are
printed ibid. go et seq.

“Mr. A. F. Leach (Beverley Chapter Act Book
[Surt. Soc.], i, p. xxviii), characterizes the Beverley
charter as ‘an excellent summary of real charters.’

ie nis printed in Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.),
i, 36-7.

St. Oswald restored the services of the church ; #3
but the highly probable story of his enshrinement
of Wilfrid’s remains was combated by the tradi-
tion that Archbishop Oda visited the deserted
site about 952, and removed the relics to Canter-
bury.* In 995 Ealdhun removed the body of
St. Cuthbert to Ripon from Chester-le-Street,
before its final translation to Durham ;!° but of
the state of the church at this time nothing is
said. The foundation of certain prebendal
estates is ascribed to Archbishop Ealdred."

In Domesday Book the canons are mentioned
as holding 14 bovates within St. Wilfrid’s league,
which was equivalent to the archbishop’s manor
of Ripon.” The limits of jurisdiction of the
archbishop’s and canons’ liberties became a fruit-
ful subject of discussion, and more than one
instance occurs of encroachment upon the
canons’ peculiar by the sheriff and the arch-
bishop’s bailiff. In 1228 judgement was given
on behalf of the canons, after a long trial in
which the jurors upheld the traditional privileges
of the chapter and defined the boundaries which
separated the canons’ from the archbishop’s fee.'®
A list of tenants within the soke of the chapter
showed that several were enfeoffed of property
by the service of providing a man to carry the
shrine of St. Wilfrid in procession at Ascension-
tide and other feasts. Nicholas Warde of Sawley
did service by bearing the standard of St. Wil-
frid in front of the shrine, and before the towns-
folk of Ripon in time of war.’ The right of
sanctuary was shared by the canons and the
archbishop, each within their liberties.”°

The analogies of York and Beverley, and the
fact that the permanent number of canons at
Ripon was seven, indicates that this was the
original number of members of the chapter.
The jurors of 1228 presented that, although
rents from various tenements were assigned to
individual canons, tenants held their property
from the chapter as a whole, and no canon had

'S ¢ Vita S. Oswaldi,’ Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i,
462.

“ Authorities printed in Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.),
i, 37-41, 42-4.

* Tbid. 44-5.

6 Ibid. ii, 182.

Dom. Bk. i, fol. 3036 (Mem. of Ripon [Surt.
Soc.], i, 46~7).

* The plea, from a roll in the Duchy of Lancaster
Records, is printed in Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i,
51-63. The important inquisition at York in 1106
was cited as evidence on behalf of the chapter’s
liberties ; cf. ibid. 34-5, and see the same docu-
ment, printed from the Southwell ‘Liber Albus’
in Visit. and Mem. Southwell Minster (Camd. Soc.),
190 et seq.

* Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 61-2.

” The. chapter’s rights of sanctuary are defined
ibid. i, 51-2 ; the archbishop’s rights in Plac. de Quo
Warr, (Rec. Com.), 221 ; see Mem. of Ripon (Surt.
Soc.), i, 70-1.

368

RELIGIOUS

separate soke in the lands on which his revenue
was charged.” The constitution of the chapter
was thus a compromise between that of the
chapters of Beverley and York. As at Beverley,
no canon had a jurisdiction distinct from that of
the chapter ; while, asat York, each canon had a
prebend derived from an assignation of definitely
localized property, from which his stall obtained
its name. ‘This arrangement, which was prob-
ably traditional, explains the absence from
Ripon of a provost,” whose duty was the over-
sight of the common property. The bulk of
the chapter possessions lay within the large parish
of Ripon, of which the Minster was the parish
church ; and six of the prebends, of which the
definite names begin to appear towards the close
of the 13th century,” were called after berewicks
of the manor of Ripon, or other places within
the soke—Thorpe (Littlethorpe), Monkton,
Givendale and Skelton, Nunwick, Studley
Magna, and Sharow. The seventh prebend
was endowed by Archbishop Gray in 1230 with
the church of Stanwick St. John in Richmond-
shire. The prebendary of Stanwick was ap-
pointed ruler of the quire in Ripon, with the
duty of perpetual residence.* His vicar naturally
resided at Stanwick. The remaining six pre-
bendaries had their vicars in the church of
Ripon, who were charged with the cure of
souls in the district of the parish attached to
each prebend.” Vicars, however, were not
instituted until 1303. Until that time the
canons, who, after the usual manner of canons
of secular chapters, were seldom resident, had
been content to serve their cures by ‘conducts’
who undertook their duties, at Stanwick and
Ripon, for a small yearly payment.** The
citations of Archbishops Romanus and Corbridge
were disregarded by the non-residents.” Cor-

1 Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 63.

7? See note 8 above; the absence of a provost led,
as will be seen later, to some confusion in the alloca-
tion of tithes.

® In Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 308, the pre-
bend of ‘Stanewegges’ is named; the others are
called by the names of their holders. The names
Studley, Munewas (sic), Givendale, and Thorpe are
added to four of these, presumably in a later hand.
Archbishop Corbridge: formally ordered the applica-
tion of local names to the prebends in 1301 (York
Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 68; Mem. of Ripon
[Surt. Soc.], ii, 32).

. ™ York Archiepis. Reg. Gray, rot. major, no. ccxix,
ccxxxix (Mem. of Ripon [Surt. Soc.], ii, 2, 3).

> The vicars were to be instituted by the chapter
to their cures of souls, ‘et nichilominus in ecclesia
matrice deserviant sicut prius servire solebant’
(Mem. of Ripon [Surt. Soc.], ii, 44).

6 Ibid. 25.

77 A strong monition to non-residents occurs in

HOUSES

bridge succeeded in obtaining the appointment
of vicars by a decree of 23 October 1303.
The six vicars at Ripon were to be paid stipends
of 6 marks a year each, and were to have a
common house, which became known by the
name of the Bedern, as at York and Beverley.”
The vicars were in existence by 29 May 1304,
when Nicholas of Bondgate granted them two
messuages on which to build their dwelling-
house.”

Archbishop Greenfield proceeded, on the lines
followed by Corbridge, to make the canons more
sensible of their responsibility. Corbridge had
forbidden the indiscriminate farming-out of pre-
bends,” and in 1307 Greenfield sequestrated
three of the prebends which had been let out to
farm.*! After a visitation in 1308 he found it
necessary to forbid buying and selling within the
church,” and to order the vicars to dwell in the
Bedern.*® In 1311 the prebend of Thorpe was
sequestrated ; its holder, an Italian, was said to
have obtained it surreptitiously, and to be a
married man. The sequestration had the de-
sired effect of compelling the prebendary to look
after his dilapidations.*4 Vicars and chantry
priests gave the archbishop some trouble. Some
of them were accused of going to dances and
theatrical spectacles with lay-folk ; others were
suspected of being night-walkers, house-breakers,
and incontinent.*® Of this second class was
William ‘Pistor,? a chantry priest, who was
defamed for incontinency with Clemence
daughter of John called ‘ Preestes,’ and was the
ringleader in a gambling game called ‘ Dynge-
thriftes.’ William fled from Ripon before Green-
field’s visitation in 1312, and went to live at
Aysgarth : the duty of discovering and correcting
him was deputed to the Archdeacon of Rich-
mond.** In 1315 Greenfield attacked the ques-
tion of non-residence. None of the canons,
other than the prebendary of Stanwick, were
bound by any statutory conditions of residence ;
nor was there any inducement to reside in the
shape of an extra share in the common fund.
Greenfield took preparatory steps towards a
remedy of this defect ;*” but it was left for his
successor, Melton, to take the matter firmly in
hand. A visitation of the chapter, held some
time before 6 February 1331-2, was so poorly
attended that Melton could take no action, and

Oct. 1301 (ibid. Corbridge, fol. 67d). In 1302 the
six non-residents disobeyed Corbridge’s injunction to
reside (ibid. fol. 70). See Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.),
li, 16, &c.

* Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 44-6.

® Charter, ibid. i, 119-21.

* Tbid. ii, 4o.

* Tbid. 56 et seq. Other sequestrations are re-
corded in subsequent years.

York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 73 d. Four canons * Ibid. 59. 3 Thid. 60.

were absent from the visitation of July 1291 (ibid. * Ibid. 65-6. * Thid. 68-9.

fol. 81d). Three were absent without excuse in 8 Ibid. 72. * Tbid. 77-8.
3 369 47

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

issued citations for a fresh visitation on 12 March.*
The questions to be settled were the emoluments
of residence, the means of repairing buildings which
had fallen into ruin by neglect of the canonsand the
fury of the Scots,*® the preservation of the liberties
of the chapter, the degree of orders required by
the holders of the several prebends, and the im-
provement of the stipends of the vicars. On
12 March two of the habitual absentees appeared
in person, while the other four sent proctors.%®
The statutes which were the result of this con-
vocation opened with a severe censure of the
neglected state of the church. They proceeded
to assign the lands and tithe of Nidd*! and
Grantley, with the whole altarage of the parish
of Ripon, as a common fund for residents. The
tithes due to the prebendary of Monkton, as
treasurer of the church, were excepted from this
ordination. ‘The term of residence was fixed, as at
Beverley and Southwell, at twelve weeks a year,
kept continuously or with intervals. Payment of
the vicars was to be made out of the common fund
of the chapter. The other questions remained
untouched.” Later in the century some dis-
pute arose among the canons with regard to the
allocation of prebendal tithes within the town of
Ripon. In 1375 the disputed shares were united
to the common fund, and an annual money pay-
ment was made in commutation to the six canons
and the fabric of the church. By far the largest
share went to the prebendary of Monkton.
The obligation of residence and the fact that his
revenue was derived from a_ distinct source
excepted the prebendary of Stanwick from these
constitutional changes.

In 1414 Henry V, at the instance of Arch-
bishop Bowett, formed the six vicars into a
college under the presidency of a proctor ; # and
Bowett granted them a site for a new Bedern.*®
Their devotion to duty seems to have attracted
the favourable notice of the archbishop, but in-
Junctions issued in 1439 by Archbishop Kemp’s
commissaries show that some negligence had
been observed in their conduct, and, among
other things, that the bad habit, prevalent at
York and Southwell, of walking about the
church during divine service was one of their

* Charter, Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 105-8.

® See taxation of Ripon prebends after the Scottish
invasion in Lerters N. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 282 ; Mem.
of Ripen (Surt. Soc.), ii, 85.

“ The church of Nidd was assigned to the common
fund in 1241 by Archbishop Gray (Mem. of Ripon
(Surt. Soc.], ii, 5). A vicarage was not ordained till
1439 (Mem. of Ripon [Surt. Soc.], ii, 150).

* Thid. 109 ; cf. Cal. Pat. 1330-4, p. 384.

“ Cal. Pat. 1413-16, pp. 267-8 ; Mem. of Ripon
(Surt. Soc.), i, 123-5.

faults.“© Throughout the 15th century the
church was in a far from flourishing condition.
The fabric was in such a state of ruin that in
1450 service could not be held in the church
but was performed in an adjoining chapel ; ”
and a succession of indulgences for contributions
to the fabric marks the various stages in decay
and repair.® The chapter acts of the period
note occasional cases of carelessness. The
sacrist in 1453 neglected his duty of ringing the
bells at the proper times ; water was not pro-
vided for the lavatories, nor was the clock
properly kept.” The vicar of Nunwick in 1460
was accused of incontinence.” In 1465 a
woman who lived at the western gatehouse of
Fountains Abbey was dying, and sent her
daughter-in-law to Ripon for the vicar of Given-
dale, in whose parish she was. He could not be
found, and the vicar of Thorpe, who was ap-
parently the only one in residence, was too old
to come, but commissioned two monks of Foun-
tains to administer the last sacraments. As a
result of this, the Abbot of Fountains claimed
her body, but she was eventually buried at
Ripon, the parishioners of three neighbouring
hamlets carrying her to her grave.*!

At a chapter held in 1477 the canons
voted half of their annual dividends from the
common fund to the fabric of the church. The
repair of the prebendal houses within five years
was also made obligatory, and fines in cases of
default were allotted to the fabric. Energy of
this kind was, however, only occasional. The
disregard of residence appears to have become
chronic, and in 1534 and 1537 Archbishop Lee
found, on the complaint of some of the other
canons, that a single residentiary, the treasurer,
Christopher Dragley, was exercising autocratic
powers in the church, much to its disadvantage
and to the prejudice of the prebendary of Stanwick
who was at this time non-resident.» Dragley was
a man of unsatisfactory character, and promoted
slackness among the vicars, for whom special
injunctions were necessary. Before the Sup-
pression, Dragley had disappeared from the
chapter, but in 1538 he gave up to the uses of
the fabric the surplus of the common fund
which he claimed as sole residentiary, reserving
only his statutory £10, and limiting his resi-
dence, in compensation, to six weeks in the
year,

““ Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 147 et seq.

ne i ( ), li, 147 et seq

* e.g. 1459-60, central tower (York Archiepis. Reg.
W. Booth, fol. 139) ; 1479, chancel (ibid. L. Booth,
fol. 101) ; 1482 (ibid. Rotherham, fol. 208). See
Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 154, &c.

* Ripon Chapter Acts (Surt. Soc.), 21.

«, Ibid. 254, 256-7.

Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 167 et seq.
M Ibid 9k " & Thid. 180!

379

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

At the visitation of 1439 the quire was said
to be constituted of thirty-two members,°?
Thirty-one only were accounted for, viz. the
seven canons, who were also the seven personae,™™
the six vicars,®® six deacons, six thuribulers, and
six choristers. In 1546-7 there were three
deacons and six sub-deacons, and the six thuri-
bulers were divided into an upper and lower
class.°° The prebendary of Stanwick, as ruler
of the quire, was ex officio precentor ; © the office
of treasurer was annexed, as has been said, to
the prebend of Monkton.® Of a chancellor
there is no record: ® the grammar-school had
its own master,® but was under the supervision
of the precentor.** The value of the prebends
varied at different times. In the Ecclesiastical
Taxation the richest was that held by Giles of
the Wardrobe, identified with Monkton,® its
annual value being £46 135. 4d.; while Stan-
wick, Givendale, Studley, and the prebend of
Master John of Evreux came next with £40
each. Nunwick was worth £30, and Thorpe
£26 135. 4d.% In 1535 the income of Stan-
wick was assessed at £39 75. 6d., and was
followed by Studley, £26 11s. 4d., Monkton
£23 12s. 8d. Nunwick £21, Thorpe £20,

% Mem. of Ripon (Surt Soc.), ii, 148.

This seems to be the meaning of ‘vij canonici,
septem personae’ (ibid.), but the qualification is un-
usually expressed.

58 Possibly the error by which thirty-two is named
as the sum total of the thirty-one officiating persons
was due to counting the vicars as seven instead of the
six rightly given in the text.

°° Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 348 et seq.
The certificate is also printed in Mem. of Ripon (Surt.
Soc.), ili, 8 et seq.

®° Yorks. Chant. Surv. loc. cit. "The prebendary of
Stanwick is sometimes referred to by modern writers
as though he were president of the chapter. This
was not the case: the chapter acts show that one of
the other residentiaries, probably the senior, acted
as president.

% Dr. J. T. Fowler (Mem. of Ripon [Surt. Soc.], iii,
p. Xv) notes that the office of treasurer often was
exercised in the 15th century by one of the chap-
lains as sub-treasurer or warden of the treasure.

“Ibid. Dr. Fowler suggests that the duties of the
chancellor ‘ devolved to some extent on the Chancellor
of York.’ * Ibid.

* A sub-chanter is mentioned in the certificate of
1546—7, but the sub-treasurer is evidently meant.

6 See note 23 above.

* This is according to the imperfect identifications
in Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 308. William
Greenfield, however, who is said to have held Studley
in 1291, held Givendale in 1301, and Philip of
Willoughby, who is said to have been prebendary of
Thorpe in 1291, was prebendary of Sharow in 1301.
Master John of Evreux appears to have been preben-
dary of Studley (Mem. of Ripon [Surt. Soc.], ii, 184).

*’ The perquisites of the treasurer must have in-
creased this sum, and Dragley, who was prebendary
at this time, engrossed the common fund as sole
residentiary.

Givendale £14 10s. 4d. and Sharow £14 55. 2d.
In 1546-7 the values of each prebend are reck-
oned somewhat differently, but the same order
is kept, with the difference that Monkton and
Studley change places. At both dates the
stipend of the six vicars is assessed at £6 each.”
Nine chantries within the church are named
in the Valor Ecclesiasticus and eight in the
Chantry Certificate.”

The two residentiaries in 1546-7 were
Richard Deane, prebendary of Stanwick, and
Marmaduke Bradley, prebendary of Thorpe,”
whose dealings with the commissioners of
Henry VIII as last Abbot of Fountains are little
to his credit.”7 In May 1547 Edward VI granted
the chapter the right of jurisdiction in cases of
probate, institution and visitation within the
peculiar ; but under the second Chantry Act
the college was dissolved, and its revenues, with
those of its chantries, united to the possessions
of the duchy of Lancaster.” Ripon, although
surrounded bya portion of the new diocese of
Chester, still continued to be part of the diocese of
York, in which it remained until 1836.7° For
many years, however, the minster was reduced
to the condition of a mere parish church, with
a small and ill-paid staff.’7 The project of
Archbishop Sandys and other strong churchmen
of the Elizabethan period to establish a theolo-
gical college at Ripon was never more than an
idea,’ and it was not until 1604 that James I,
at the request of Anne of Denmark, reconsti-
tuted the collegiate body under the presidency of
adean. Six stalls were endowed, and in 1607,
under a second charter, a sub-deanery was
created, to which Dr. John Favour, the celebrated
vicar of Halifax, was appointed.” Subsequently
the sub-dean was always one of the prebendaries.®°
The first dean was Moses Fowler, who previously
was one of the vicars who served the church,
and had seconded Sandys in his abortive scheme.®!
After its suppression during the Commonwealth

% Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 250.

® Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 348-52.

” Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 251 ; Yorks. Chant.
Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 353.

" Valor Eccl. loc. cit. ; Yorks. Chant. Surv, (Surt.
Soc.), 354 seq.

” Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 349.

* L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, 137.

* Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), i, 108 etseq. Henry VIII
made a similar grant in 1535 (ibid. 106-8).

© Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 257. The arch-
bishop’s manor had been annexed to the duchy
previously (Lawton, Coll. Rer. Eccl. 540).

It formed a peculiar of the Archbishop of York :
the population of the large parish in 1831 was
ig out of thirty-one townships (Lawton, op. cit.
538).

™ Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 257.

ae ( ), ti, 257

”® Ibid 257-8, 277.

® Ibid. 258, " Thid. 259, 257.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the chapter was revived at the Restoration.
The deanery remained a Crown appointment,
but the collation to the canonries rested with
the archbishop, subject to the presentation of
three nominees by the chapter.” In 1836
the new bishopric of Ripon was founded, and
the number of prebendaries reduced, after the
vacation of two of the stalls, to four residentiary
canons.*3 The number of honerary canonries
in the collation of the bishop is twenty-four.

The rath-century seal * is a vesica, 23 in. by
2in., with Agnus Dei standing on an altar, and
the legend :

++ sSIGILLVM SANCTI WILFRIDI RIPENSIS ECLESIE

The 13th-century seal ® of the commissary of
the chapter is asmall vesica, r} in. by 1 in., with
a tree, in the branches of which are a crucifix
and a bird. Below stands St. Wilfrid, and on
the other side is a kneeling monk. At the foot
isa lily. The legend is:

s’ COMMISSAR’ CAPL’I] ECCLESIE RIPONIENSIS

The 15th-century seal of the vicars choral ®
is a vesica, and shows, under a canopy, a king
giving a sealed charter to a bishop ; on the right
of the canopy is a key, on the left a star; below,
under an arch, is a group of heads. Legend :

S * COE... PER REGEM HENRICUM v7?

205. JESUS COLLEGE, ROTHERHAM

Thomas Scot, afterwards known as Thomas
Rotherham, was a native of Rotherham, and be-
came its most distinguished son. Among other
dignities he held the provostry of Beverley,’ the
see of Rochester,? the see of Lincoln,*> the
archbishopric of York,* the chancellorship of
Cambridge University, and the lord-chancellor-
ship.’ He had the interest of his native town
very much at heart, and by royal licence, ob-
tained 28 July 1480% and 22 January 1483,’
he founded the collegiate church, of which he
laid the foundation stone on 12 March 1483,°
having by his own metropolitical authority drawn
up the statutes on 1 February 1483.°

The site of the college is described as lying
between ‘le ympyerd,’ or abbot’s close, and ‘the

% Mem. of Ripon (Surt. Soc.), ii, 258.
§ Ibid.

Cat. of Seals, B.M. 3910, lxxy, 2.
* Ibid. 3911, xi, 41.

* Hunter, Doncaster, ii, 5, 6.

* Dizcesan Cal. 1907, p. 70.

° Poulson, Bereviac, 653.

® Torre’s MS. (Yors), fol. 1105.
{Pats 23. Edw IV, pt. ily 'ms 33:

* Leach, Doras. Sch. it, p. xxxi.

* Tbid. 109, where the statutes are fully given,

* Ibid.

common river.’ Here, at a distance of 160 ft.
from the parish church,” he erected ‘ the College
of Jesu of Rotherham.’ In founding the institu-
tion, the archbishop had several objects in view :
(1) it was to be in every sense a religious house ;
(2) it was to be a means of securing that the
Word of God was preached in the neighbour-
hood ; (3) it was to afford chambers for the
chantry priests of the town, and so save them
from the temptation of living vagrant and idle
lives ; and (4) it was to be an educational insti-
tution, the district being ‘very barayn of know-
ledge.’ }

The house was founded for a provost, two
fellows, and, funds permitting, six choristers ; and
later, when making his will, the founder added a
third fellow, bringing the total up to ten in the
college, and so in his will he was able to indulge
in the conceit that in whatsoever he might have
offended God in the ten commandments he
might have ten people to pray for him.”

The provost was to be a priest, a doctor or at
least a B.D. of Cambridge, the appointment re-
maining with the founder during life, and after
his death the regents and non-regents of Cam-
bridge were to present new provosts to the Arcli-
bishop of York within a month of the notice of
any vacancy, such notice to have been given by
letter within nineteen days from the vacancy."

The provost was to keep perpetual residence
for the greater part of the year, to preserve the
college rights and honestly administer its re-
venues, and to preach the Word of God in the
diocese, and especially in Rotherham, Laxton,
and Ecclesfield, no Sunday in Lent ever to be
omitted, and specially was he to preach on Palm
Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Day, Corpus Christi,
the feast of the Assumption, and All Saints’
Day.“ For his stipend he was to have 20 marks
a year.’ To the provost belonged the correc-
tion and reformation of fellows, choristers, ser-
vants, and others within the college precincts.

The first two fellows were Dom Edmund
Carter and Dom William Alanson, the masters
of the grammar school and song school respec-
tively. The third, ordered in the founder’s will,
was to teach writing and arithmetic to youths
not intended for holy orders ; this third fellow-
ship to be held in perpetuity by the cantarist at
the altar of St. Katharine in the parish church,
which had been insufficiently endowed by
Mr. John Foxe, its founder.’® These four, the
provost and fellows, were to be a corporation
possessing a common seal. The fellows were to
be priests, or at least one of them, who was to be

” Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 201.

" Tbid.

* Hunter, Doncaster, ii, 7.

8 Torre’s MS. (York), fol. 1105. ™ Ibid.

'S Hunter (Doncaster, ii, 8) gives the stipend, but
erroneously, as £20.

*® Hunter, Doncaster, ii, 7.

oy>

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

chosen by the provost for his ability to teach
‘grammar, poetry, and rhetoric.’!” The second
fellow was to teach song, especially ‘plain’ and
“broken,’ and they were to have stipends of {10
and 10 marks respectively.

The choristers were to be six poor boys from
the district, preference to be given to those of
Rotherham and Ecclesfield. They were to be
* chosen by the provost, and instructed in grammar
and music till eighteen years of age, when others
were to be elected to take their places. Food
and clothing were to be supplied them amounting
to the value of an exhibition of about £3 6s. 8d.
each.'8 There was a butler and cook, each of
whom, besides his keep, received a yearly wage
of £1 6s, 8d.

The fellows, choristers, and servants were to
be paid by the provost out of the common fund.
The provost and fellows dined together, but
paid for their own victuals. In addition to their
stipends they were to have their barber and
laundry free, and the provost was to have 18s. a
year, while each of the fellows had 16s., to pro-
vide them cloth gowns.’ All were provided
with wood and coals.

The founder distinctly stated that the chiet
purpose of the college was that certain prayers
might be said for the souls of Edward IV, Queen
Elizabeth, Prince Edward, and the founder.”
It was also ordained that the provost, fellows, and
choristers, twice a week and on festivals, should
celebrate their masses in the chapels of Jesus and
St. Katharine in the parish church and their other
masses in the college chapel, and that on g April
each year the anniversary of the founder’s parents
and King Edward should be celebrated, on the
morrow a requiem mass being sung. And after
the founder’s death the day should be kept as his
anniversary, with a specified collect, and at such
anniversary alms were to be distributed to thirteen
poor people. Besides these things they were to
sing on all festivals in the quire of the parish
church at matins and vespers as well as mass, the
scholars being specially enjoined to attend.

In addition to the site of the college and the
buildings, the founder gave for the support of the
college certain lands in the counties of Hertford,
Essex, and Kent, and he appropriated the church
of Laxton in co. Nottingham. These properties
were of considerable value, and the exhibitions
of the six choristers, made contingent on the
funds being sufficient, were all duly established,
and all other expenses easily paid.?!

In 1512 a friend of the founder died, Henry
Carnebull, Archdeacon of York. In his will,
dated 12 July of that year, he founded a chantry
in Rotherham Parish Church, leaving certain
properties to the college for its endowment, the

™ Torre’s MS. (York), fol. 1106.
8 Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 382.
® Torre’s MS. (York), fol. 1105.
” Ibid. ” Ibid.

chantry priest to have 10 marks yearly if the
endowment sufficed. It did suffice, and the
chantry continued until the Suppression. Carne-
bull also bequeathed £40 to the provost, Mag.
Robert Cutler,” and in addition to this Rother-
ham chantry he also founded the ‘Name of
Jesus” chantry in York Minster, which was to
be in the patronage of the Provost of Rother-
ham.”

Ten years later another legacy was made to
the provost by Thomas Reirsby, whose will was
made 2 August 1522. He left the residue of
his goods to be ‘at the disposicion of Robert
Nevile, Provost of the College of Jhesu in
Rotherham.’ ** Three years afterwards this same
provost was the recipient of a personal legacy
under the will of Sir Thomas Swift, 4 February
1524-5 : ‘my best gowne cremysyn furryd with
mattrens, my best surples, a booke of blake
velvett with . . . of silver and gilt, a girdle
harneshed with silver and gilt having a flower on
the bucle and a other in the pendent.’ ** Neville
was still provost in 1536, the three fellows then
being William Drapour, master of the grammar
school, William Simmes, master of the music
school, and John Addy, master of the writing
school.”

The Chantry Certificate of 1546 gives minute
particulars of the college revenues and outgoings.
The college with its garden and orchard, 2 acres
in extent, were ‘inverounde witha brick walle,’ ?”
and together with the house in which the three
schools were kept were valued at £3 6s. 8d. per
annum, and the college properties in various
counties brought up the total annual revenue to
£127 7s. 7id. The outgoings, including
£6 135. 4d. for ‘hys stypende’ to Thomas
Bayschaw (evidently the Carnebull cantarist),
amounted to £20 2s. 13d. yearly, leaving a clear
sum ultimately available for annexation of

£107 55. 10d. (sic) per annum.”® Out of this
balance there was to be paid to the
5. d.
Provost, ‘Robert Busshoppe,
of Hull’ * - 2 e 14 4 8
Grammar-school master 10 19 4
Song-school master. . . 7 12 8
Writing-school master . 6 6 0
Ochoristers . 4 4 . s » 21 @ 2
13 dinners to poor. . . . 0 2 2
13 penniesto poor - . ., oO 1.1
Total 60 15 1

” Test. Ebor, (Surt. Soc.), v. 29-32.

*® Fabric R. of York Minster (Surt. Soc.), 304.

* Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), v, 1§2.

* Ibid. 197.

** Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 44-5.

*” The college also was of ‘ brike’ (Leland).

* Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 204.

* The punctuation is faulty ; it should have been

‘Robert, Bishop of Hull.” He had been also the
Prior of Guisborough.

373

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The goods were valued at £54 7s. 8d. and
the plate at £247 os. 4d.¥

The 1548 survey differs somewhat. The
goods are valued at £32 10s., and the plate is
described by weight: ‘Gylte 517402z., parcell
gilte 520} 0z., white 24}0z.’ The freeholds
are entered as £130 165. 1}d., the outgoings
£7 195. 73d., leaving a balance of £122 165. 54d.

The provost in 1548 was said to be forty-four
years of age, and received a stipend of £13 65. 8d.,
a gown worth 18s., and an allowance for three
horses. He was also certified to have a pension
of 250 marks from the king,** and a prebend in
York Minster of £58. The grammar-school
master, Thomas Snell, was thirty-six years of
age, a B.A., with a stipend of £10, 12s. for his
gown, 35. 4d. for fuel, barber and laundry free.
Robert Cade, the song-school master, was thirty-
eight, his stipend £6 13s. 4d., with 125. for his
gown, 35. 4d. for fuel, and free laundry and
barber. John Addy, the writing-school master,
was sixty-one, his stipend being {5 65. 8¢., with
16s. for his gown, 3s. 4d. for fuel, and free
laundry and barber. The six choristers each re-
ceived in money and food £3 6s. 8d. a year.
Thomas Pakyn, the butler, was forty, and
Robert Parkyn, the cook, was forty-five, and
each received yearly £1 6s. 8d. for wages.

The annual distribution to the poor was said
to amount to 65.7

Provosts oF RoTHERHAM

William Graybarne, §.T.P., first provost,
appointed 1 Feb. 1483 *

William Rawson, occurs 1495, died that
year #4

John Hoton, §.T.B., instituted 4 Feb.
150-%

Robert Cutler, S.T.B., instituted 4 Mar.
1508 *

Robert Neville, S.T.B., instituted g Jan.
15177

Richard Jackson *
Robert Newrie, occurs 1534 3°
Robert Pursglove, instituted 26 June 1544 *

® Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 200, 201.

*\ This would be for pension from Guisborough
Priory, and other services in connexion with the dis-
solution of the monasteries.

* Yorks, Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 380~2.

“Torre (op. cit. fol. 110s) erroneously says
1482.

“4 Leach, Yorks. Sch. ii, Pp. XXXVi.

* Torre’s MS. (York), fol. 1105.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Bainbridge, fol. 51.

* Tbid. fol. 107.

* Torre’s MS. (York), fol. 1105.

*° Hunter, Doncaster, ii, 9.

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Lee, fol. 75. Pursglove,

who was Suffragan Bishop of Hull, lived till 1579
(Hunter, loc. cit.).

206. COLLEGE OF ST. JAMES,
SUT TON-IN-HOLDERNESS

In 1346, when John de Sutton was lord of
the manor of Sutton, and his uncle Thomas
Sampson was rector, the royal licence was granted
to alienate in mortmain the advowson to six
chaplains to celebrate divine service daily in the
chapel for the good estate of the king, Queen
Philippa, Sir John and Alina’ his wife, and for
their souls after death, as well as the souls of Sir
John’s parents and ancestors.? On Friday in
Whit-week 1347 Sir John founded the college
for six chaplains and for the purposes specified,’
appointing as the first master his uncle, Thomas
de Sampson,* the existing rector.5 On the fol-
lowing 11 August Archbishop Zouch made his
ordination for the regulation of the collegiate
society of the following tenor :—In the rectory a
hall, kitchen, stable, granges, and other necessary
houses were to be provided for the master, chap-
lains, and servants. The master or custos was to
be presented by the founder and his wife and the
heirs of Sir John within fifteen days after a
vacancy. In case the patron died sine prole, then
the patronage was to be in the hands of the
chaplains, who were to appoint within eight
days. The custos was to administer the college
properties, be in residence, and have charge of
the inhabitants of Sutton and Stone Ferry. In
addition to the master there were to be five
chaplains ; vacancies were to be filled up by the
founder and his wife during their lives, and after-
wards by their heirs. But, as in the case of the
mastership, if there were no issue, then the
appointments were to be made by the custos within
eight days. The founder and his heirs and all
future owners of the manor were to pay, under
pain of the greater excommunication, for the
support of the college, all the tithes small and great
growing or being upon the manor lands. The
custos was to pay one mark yearly, together with
the mortuaries and obventions of Sutton and
Stone Ferry, &c., to the Chancellor of York in
the name of the church of Wawne.®

These statutes having been ordained, the
chapel of Sutton was appropriated to the college
by the archbishop on 17 November in the same
year, the custes to pay to the Archbishop of York
£1 yearly, and to the dean and chapter one
mark yearly, as compensation for any losses
caused by the appropriation.’

’ This is a clerical error ; her name was Alice.

? Pat. 20 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 31.

® Torre’s MS, (Peculiars), fol. 501.

‘He was Archdeacon of Cleveland, and was in-
stituted vicar of Acaster Malbis 22 Apr. 1340. He
was buried in the cathedral church at York (Torre’s
MS. [Minster], fol. 718).

* York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 190.

* Torre’s MS. (Peculiars), fol. 501, et seq.

” Poulson, Holderness, 331, 332.

374

RELIGIOUS

A new ordination was made by Archbishop
Alexander Nevill on 6 May 1380. The college
was to consist of one major or custos, five per-
petual chaplains, and two clerks, One of the
clerks was to be provided by the custos and at his
cost ; the other was to be the aguae bajulus, and
have his victuals in addition to the parochial
alms, and the offerings of the master and chap-
lains. At the death or cession of a custos, the
lord of the manor, Sir Thomas de Sutton, while
he lived, and after his death Agnes his wife,
while she lived, and after both their deaths
the chaplains, were within twenty days of the
vacancy to nominate one of the chaplains to the
custody, if any among them were considered
suitable. If not, then some other fit chaplain of
the lord of the manor, or his attorney, was to be
appointed. The chaplains were to be nominated
by the custes and existing chaplains, and presented
by the lord of Sutton within twenty days of any
vacancy. Oneofthechaplains was to be deputed by
the master to the cure of souls of the parish belong-
ing to the chapel, such appointment to be termin-
able at the pleasure of the custos. The custos was
to have a stipend of not more than 8 marks yearly
besides his keep. The chaplain with the cure
of souls was to have 4 marks a year, and each of
the others 33 marks. The master and chaplains
were to have their commons together and lodge
in one house, or else two and two, unless hindered
by infirmity. Each of the six was to celebrate
his own mass; on Sundays and festivals they
were to say matins, parochial mass, and vespers ;
on Fridays and Saturdays our Lady’s mass with
note; on the other days masses, matins, and
other ‘hours.’ Special masses and prayers were
also ordered for the founder’s soul, &c. The
reserve payments and mortuaries were to be con-
tinued as under Archbishop Zouch’s ordination.®

In 1447 a dispute was settled between the
college and the parish of Wawne from which
originally the chapel had been cut off. It was
now arranged that a sum of 20s. was to be paid
to the inhabitants of Wawne ‘as an acknowledge-
ment of subjection.”® In 36 Henry VI it
was found by a jury that Ralph Bygod, kt.,
John Salvain, kt., William Bulmer, esq., and
Lady Isabella Goddard had the presentation to the
mastership and to one of the five chantries of
the collegiate church, and that Peter de Mauley,
lord of the manor, made the last presentation.!
In 1536 the annual value of the college was
given as £13 185. 8d."

How the college was dealt with at the Sup-
pression there are no records to show, the last
facts known of the house being the appointments
in 1547 to the second and fourth chantries

> Torre’s MS. (Peculiars), fol. 501, 502, quoting
from York Archiepis. Reg. Alex. Nevill, fol. 61.

° Lawton, Coll. Rerum Eccl. 416.

” Poulson, Holderness, 335.

" Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 110.

HOUSES

respectively of John Stother, priest, and Edward
Hodgson, priest, the former being presented by
the archbishop per lapsum.

Masters oF SuTTon #

Thomas Sampson, appointed 1347

William de Denford, appointed 1349

Thomas de Louthorp, resigned 1370

Peter de Elyngton, appointed 1370

William de Barnby, died 1402

Thomas de Poynton, appointed 1402, died
1410

John Poynton, appointed 1410, exchanged
1413

Robert Marflete, appointed 1413, died 1432

Simon Seller, appointed 1432, died 1443

William Semanson, appointed 1443, died 1456

Peter Ouste, appointed 1458

William Walsh, appointed 1470

Robert Thomlynson, appointed 1471

William Warde, appointed 1472, died 1487

John Curwen, appointed 1487, resigned 1489

Robert Ferys, appointed 1489

Thomas Alderson, appointed 1499

Ralph Bulmer, appointed 1517 (?)

Christopher Brasse, appointed 1515, died 1522

Thomas Jenyson, appointed 1522, resigned
1528

John Brandesby, appointed 1528

207. CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF
ST. PETER, YORK

The Dean and Chapter of York in the
Middle Ages were the direct successors of a body
of secular clergy similar in constitution to the
primitive chapters of Beverley, Ripon, and
Southwell. ‘There is no evidence of any monas-
tic establishment in connexion with the church
of the somewhat vague type which existed at
Ripon in the days of Wilfrid and may have
prevailed at Beverley before the Danish invasions.
The clergy of the minster towards the end of
the 8th century seem to have followed a definite
rule of life ; while a school was attached to the
church which under Ethelbert and Alcuin ob-
tained great distinction.! In the schoolmasters
of the church, men of great learning and reputa-
tion, we see the prototypes of the later chancellors,
whose duty was the oversight of the minster
grammar-school.? The tradition held at York

* Torre’s MS. (Peculiars), fol. 04 ; corrected from
Archiepiscopal Registers.

' See ‘Eccl. Hist.’ above, p. 5.

* ‘Cancellarius, qui antiquitus Magister scolarum
dicebatur’ (York Statutes in Bradshaw and Wordsworth,
Lincoln Cath. Statutes, ti,95). ‘There is an ordination of
Archbishops Roger and Geoffrey concerning payments
to the chancellor from the archdeacons on behalf of
the school in Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 75.
See also ibid. 220-1.

375

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

was that the first ministers of the church, corre-
sponding to the later canons, were called Culdees,
i.e. Colidei, and were seven in number.’ The
foundation of their common property wasa grant
of a thrave or sheaf of wheat from each plough
in Yorkshire, which after the Conquest was
transferred by the chapter to the hospital of St.
Peter, later known as St. Leonard’s.4 The
actual date of this grant is not known, but
Athelstan, by a charter dated in 930, gave the
whole of Amounderness to the church of St.
Peter and Archbishop Wulfstan ;° and the grant
of the Yorkshire thraves, which may be com-
pared with the more famous grant attributed to
Athelstan of thraves from the East Riding to the
church of Beverley, may belong to the same
period. Athelstan was regarded in the 12th
century as the founder of the liberties and cus-
toms of the church of York ; and although they
cannot be attributed to him with certainty, yet
his fame in the north of England as a king whose
conquests gave unity to the scattered tragments
of his kingdom made his reign a convenient
starting-point for the constitutional history of the
Yorkshire minsters.

The privileges of the church as men remem-
bered them to have existed in the days of the
Confessor and Archbishop Ealdred are enumerated
ina charter of confirmation granted by Henry I.®
This seems to have been the result of an inquiry
made in the shire-mote at York in 1106 by
request of Archbishop Gerard, when the Sheriff
of Yorkshire was attempting to override the
jurisdiction of the church.” The land of the
canons was declared to be quit of all claim from
the king’s officers or the sheriff; the canons
themselves had all suit of their tenants and heard
their pleas before the door of the church.® They
were bound to contribute only one man to the
army, who should carry St. Peter’s standard to
war at the head of the burgesses of York. The
church had the right of sanctuary within its
precincts and in the stone chair or stool of peace
by the altar, where the criminal was safe from
his pursuer; but at York the sanctuary-man

> Hugh the Chanter, Hist. CA. of York (Rolls Ser.),
ii,107. The word Co/idei, under the form ¢ Kaladeus,’
occurs in the presentment of a jury in 1246, by which
the right of the dean and chapter to collate a master
to St. Leonard’s Hospital was established (ibid. iti,
162-5).

‘ Ibid. § Tbid. iii,

* Printed ibid. iii, 34-6.

"See the letter from the chapter of York to the
chapter of Southwell, printed from the ‘ Liber Albus ’
of Southwell in Visit, and Mem. of Southwell Minster
(Camd. Soc.), 190 etseq. This embodies the text of
the charter, and adds much detail from the evidence
of the inquest.

* The reason for this is given in the charter as the
obligation of the canons to say their hours in church ;
when the bell raig they could go into quire, and
return when the office was done.

1-5; cf. ii, 339.

does not seem to have been allowed the wider
boundary which at Beverley and Ripon was
marked by ‘mile crosses.” In view of possible
controversies between the canons and archbishop,
all forfeitures from the chapter lands were decreed
to belong tothe chapter alone. The right of the
archbishop was confined to the collation of
canonries with the advice and assent of the
chapter. These privileges, mutatis mutandis, are
practically identical with those which we find
acknowledged at Beverley and Ripon.

The common life of the canons was furthered
by Archbishop Ealdred, who provided them
with a frater.® The wasting of Yorkshire by
William I drove the canons from the minster.
Thomas of Bayeux found only three out of the
seven in residence, and to his work of rebuilding
the church added that of reorganizing its consti-
tution.” He recalled the absent canons, raised
their number, restored their frater and dorter,
and appointed a provost to administer their
common property. This, however, was evidently
a temporary arrangement. For the eventual
constitution he was indebted to the church of
Bayeux, in which he had been treasurer." The
school had probably been disorganized by the
events of the previous few years, and Thomas
appointed a chancellor before he turned his
attention to the other dignities of the church.
The creation of a dean, treasurer, and precentor
followed. With these appointments came the
assignment of a fixed prebend in land and money
to each canon, which made the provostship a
superfluous office. By the custom of York, which
was followed at Lincoln and Salisbury, the four
major dignitaries took precedence of the canons.
In Thomas’s constitution the treasurer seems to
have taken the first place after the dean, and the
north side of the quire was known until late in
the Middle Ages as the pars thesaurarii.% In
the oldest existing statutes, however, the normal
order of dean, precentor, chancellor, and treasurer
was observed ;* and the right of the chancellor
to the third dignity was established by an inquest
held in 1191, when it was ordained that he
should take precedence of all after the precentor.'

Thomas of Bayeux is credited with the ap-
pointment of archdeacons,!® but their territorial

* Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 353%

” Ibid. 362. No dates are given, but the transition
in constitution is clearly marked.

Bradshaw and Wordsworth, op. cit. i, 101 et seq.

"York Fabric R. (Surt. Soc.), 246, 252. The
dates of the documents cited are 1409 and 1472.
The treasurer is mentioned next after the dean in
Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 362, where the
chronicle printed is of the 12th century. In York
Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 221 d., there isa statement
of the duties of the precentor, followed by the form
of oath taken by the treasurer on admission.

"° Bradshaw and Wordsworth, Op. cit. ii, g4 et seq.

“ Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 91.

* Ibid. ii, 382.

376

RELIGIOUS

designations were not applied to them until a
later time. No prebends were annexed at first
to the dignities or the archdeaconries. The
prebends eventually reached the number of thirty-
six. The names of several places which became
separate prebendal estates appear among the
possessions of St. Peter in Domesday. It is,
however, quite uncertain how many prebends
Thomas founded. ‘The church of Laughton-en-
le-Morthen was granted to the minster as a pre-
bend by Henry I in the time of Archbishop
Gerard.” Archbishop Thomas II founded two
more prebends.'®8 Archbishop Gray founded the
office of sub-dean,! and formed the prebends of
Fenton and Wistow out of his barony of Sher-
burn.” The last prebend to be founded was
Bilton, which was ordained by Archbishop
Romanus in 1295.7 With four exceptions the
churches and manors from which the prebendal
incomes were derived were situated in Yorkshire.
Apesthorpe and Bole were in Nottinghamshire,
and Thockrington was in Northumberland.
The prebend of Botevant seems originally to
have been a money prebend charged upon the
common of thechapter. The name of Botevant,
for which no definite reason is forthcoming, seems
to have been attached to it before 1339.% The
prebends of Bramham and Salton were appro-
priated from an early date, Bramham to the Prior
of Nostell, Salton to the Prior of Hexham. At
the taxation of 1291, Masham was the wealthiest
stall, assessed at {166 135. 4d. Wetwang
and South Cave followed, with {120 and
£106 135. 4d. Driffield, Langtoft, and Wistow
were each valued at £100. Apesthorpe, Grin-
dale, Dunnington, and Warthill were assessed at
only £10 each.™

A share in the common fund at York, as in
most collegiate churches, was obtained only by
residence. The statutes required constant resi-
dence from the four dignitaries. An ordinary
prebendary who intended to reside had to qualify
- for the ‘minor residence’ by a continuous ‘ major
residence’ of twenty-six weeks, during which he
was bound to attend all the canonical hours,
unless he was undergoing his periodical bleeding
or was prevented by sickness. During this time
he received nothing from the common fund, but

16 See ‘Eccl. Hist.’ above, p. 10.

” Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 30-1.

18 Thid. 372.

® Archbp. Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), i, 26-7.

” For references and fuller details of Gray’s arrange-
ments see ‘ Eccl. Hist.’ above, p. 25.

| York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 47 d.

7 Another money prebend, without a title, was
annexed to the office of sub-dean.

3 Sir John de Wodehouse was collated to the pre-
bend ‘dicta Botevant,’ void by the death of John of
Ellerker, 31 July 1339 (York Archiepis. Reg. Melton,
fol. 122).

* Pope Nich. Tax (Rec. Com.), 297.

HOUSES

was expected to bear the heavy charge of enter-
taining twice as many of the vicars and ministers
of the church on double festivals as were enter-
tained by canons in the minor residence. After
passing through this stage of probation he might
enter on the minor residence of twenty-four weeks
in the year, which gave him his right to commons.
This was counted, not by continuous residence,
but by the number of days on which he was
present at vespers, matins, and mass, the greater
festivals alone being obligatory. Twelve full
weeks had to be completed in the winter residence,
between Martinmas and Whitsuntide.”*

The amount of commons due to residents was
fixed by a statute of Archbishop Gray in 1221 at
6d. daily, which was raised on feasts of nine
lessons to 1s., and on double feasts, when the
cost of entertainment was heavy, to 2s. At the
end of the half-yearly residence a dividend was
declared on the surplus of the common fund
between the resident canons. Gray recognized
the principle that commons were annexed to
residence and formed no part of a prebend.
When the treasurer claimed double commons on
the ground that he held two prebends, his demand
was compromised by a grant of 3 marks in addi-
tion to single commons for his lifetime only.?’
Exceptions were made on behalt of the chancellor
and the Archdeacon of Richmond, who held
money prebends only ; as these were paid out of
the common fund they and their successors in the
prebends were allowed to have 6 marks yearly,
whether resident or absent.”® The residence of
archdeacons who held prebends was fixed at a
minimum of twelve weeks only, on account of
their necessary duties outside York.”

A decree for the assignment of the common
fund, with details of the farms arising from the
churches and manors belonging to it, was made
by the chapter under the presidency of Dean
Newark about 1291, when the habit of farming
out these possessions was causing some incon-
venience to the church. The farms, as they fell
vacant, were now assigned to canons who had
completed their greater and lesser residence, in
order ofseniority.*° Statutes passed on 5 October
1291 fixed the necessary annual residence for
each canon to whom a farm was assigned at
twelve weeks, while six weeks were required of
an archdeacon. ‘The needs of the fabric of the
church and its necessary expenses were met by
assigning it the share of a single canon in the
half-yearly dividend. The sum thus set aside
was put in the common chest, of which the dean
and the three senior residentiaries were entrusted
with the four keys,*

* Bradshaw and Wordsworth, op. cit. 100 et seq.

* Thid. 105 et seq.

7 Ibid. 107-8. 8 Ibid. 108.

* Ibid. 105. No prebends were permanently an-
nexed to the archdeaconries.

°° Tbid. 120 et seq. 7 Tbid. 118.

3 377 48

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Later statutes provided for the maintenance of
the prebendal houses. Arrangements were made
by which a non-resident might let his house to a
residentiary who had no house assigned to his
prebend. New prebendaries were required to
set on foot an inquisition into the dilapidations
of their houses, within six weeks after induction.
A prebend might be exchanged or resigned after
three years’ enjoyment of the fruits. Every pre-
bendary, on vacating his prebend, was bound to
give a choral cope or its value, 20 marks, and
his palfrey or 10 marks, to the church.”

Residence was too expensive to be popular.
The statutes of 1291 were passed by eight
canons who were present, in addition to Dean
Newark. The clergy who composed this chap-
ter were all intimately connected with the
business of the church of York.*

At the chapter of 16 August 1325, which
passed the statutes relating to prebendal houses,
nine canons, including the Prior of Hexham,
were present, and nine others appeared by proxy.*4
The number of residentiaries, however, was
much smaller than that of the minority which
came to York for chapter meetings. Thus in
1304-5 John of Nassington, writing from York
to the auditor of the chapter of Beverley, said
that only two canons were in residence.*> In
1310 three canons only met in chapter to
arrange a date for the election of a new dean.*®
On all these occasions the chancellor was one of
the canons present. The duty of continual
residence was certainly not regarded as binding
by the other dignitaries. Bogo de Clare, who
held the office of treasurer, and died in 1295,
was seldom, if ever, in York ; his many benefices
were widely scattered over England, and the
complaints made against him and his deputies at
York probably found an echo elsewhere.” The
Holy See, on the election of Newark to the arch-
bishopric, attempted to provide Cardinal Francesco
Gaetani to the deanery. William of Hamble-
ton succeeded in obtaining possession, but on his
death Clement V_ provided his own brother
Raymond de Goth,* who also held the prebend
of Wetwang, and was Dean of Lincoln and
precentor of Lichfield.3® The intrusion of papal

*? Bradshaw and Wordsworth, i, 127-9.

33 Of their number, in addition to the dean him-
self, Thomas of Corbridge and William Greenfield
became Archbishops of York. William of Hambleton,
Archdeacon @f York, succeeded Newark as dean, and
William of Pickering, Archdeacon of Nottingham,
became dean later on.

* Bradshaw and Wordsworth, op. cit. 126.

% Beverley Chapter Act Book (Surt. Soc.), i, 62.

8 Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), ili, 227.

% See Archbp. Wickwane’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 286-7.
In 1280 Bogo de Clare held nineteen benefices in
fourteen dioceses (Linc. Inst. R. Sutton [Northants],
m. I).

88 Le Neve, Fasti (ed. Hardy), iii, 121.

°° Cal. Pat. 1307-13, p. 147.

provisors into the major prebends and the arch-
deaconries during the reigns of Edward I and
Edward II was constant, while the Savoyard rela-
tions of the royal family swelled the number of non-
residents in the chapter. At Archbishop Romanus’
death in 1295-6 at least a third of the chapter
was composed of foreigners.° In Archbishop
Corbridge’s time, eleven admissions of foreigners
to canonries and prebends are recorded, as against
three of Englishmen.*! Of fifty-one admissions
in Melton’s register, twenty-six are of foreigners.”
Not all these succeeded in obtaining installation ;
and Cardinal Gaetani, Hambleton’s rival in the
deanery, failed to oust Walter of Bedwin, the
nominee of Edward I, from the treasurership.*
The Englishmen who held office were for the
most part royal clerks, who held their benefices
by grant or by the influence of the king and
were also members at the same time of other
chapters, such as Lincoln and Salisbury.“4 But
Robert Burnell, chancellor of Edward I, during
his tenure of the archdeaconry of York seems
to have discovered the most prominent recruits
for the chancery in young Yorkshiremen, who,
as time went on, held their chief preferments in
the church of York. William of Hambleton, of
whom Edward I in 129g said that there was
“no one else in his realm so expert in its laws
and customs,’ “* was Burnell’s right-hand man.**
Of the younger generation which worked under
Burnell and Hambleton, Adam of Osgodby and
Robert of Barlby were Yorkshiremen and canons
of the cathedral church.”

Apart from the claims of pope and king upon
the obedience of the chapter, its independence
was seriously harassed by the archbishops. ‘The
struggle with Geoffrey Plantagenet has already
been told elsewhere : ** it ended ina drawn battle,
with little advantage to either side. Archbishop
Gray strengthened the hands of the chapter by
enlarging its possessions and attaching the digni-
taries to his personal service ; 4° and, under himself

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, Capitula.

"' Ibid. Corbridge (fol. 189 d. et seq.). The prebend
of Stillington, vacated by Corbridge, was given to
Francesco Gaetani. “ Tbid. Melton, fol. 68d-122.

* See Cal. Pat.1324-7, p. 151. Cf. ibid. 1330-4,
p- 186. Corbridge issued a mandate to the dean and
chapter to admit Gaetani 21 July 1303 (York Archi-
epis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 196 d.).

“ Such as William Ayermin, afterwards Bishop of
Norwich (Ca/. Pat. 1321-4, pp. 134, 275, 337, Kc.).

““ He was one of Burnell’s executors (Ca/. Pat.
1292-1301, p. 264, &c.).

‘” Osgodby was prebendary of Ulleskelf, Barlby of
Dunnington (Ca/. Pat. 1313-17, pp. 343, 554).
Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield, John de Kirkby,
Bishop of Ely, and William Ayermin, Bishop of
Norwich, were closely connected with York by kin-
dred or birth, and held prebends there.

® See ‘Eccl. Hist.’ above.

® Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 136-7.

378

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

and his successors, the chapter was largely com-
posed of confidential clerks, whose ranks were
recruited by Archbishop Giffard from relations
and dependants of his family in Wiltshire and
Gloucestershire. Gray conveyed his manor of
Bishopthorpe on trust to the dean and chapter,”
and numerous deeds in connexion with the
transference of archiepiscopal property show that
they were the normal trustees of the archbishop’s
manors, whose consent was necessary to any
change in this direction. ‘The increase of the
chapter in wealth and independence brought it
into collision with the archbishop, and, under
Romanus, although some of its individual mem-
bers still formed his consultative council, it
asserted its rights with emphasis. Romanus,
actively concerned in the reformation of his
chapters, succeeded in subdividing the rich
prebend of Masham into three, and that of
Langtoft into two portions ;* but this arrange-
ment ceased with his death. He also did his
best to strengthen the school under the control
of the chancellor. His reforms, however, were
probably allowed by the chapter only as a result
of a compromise, which was arrived at in
November 1290, upon his powers as visitor.
The dean promised obedience to the archbishop,
with a clause, capable of wide interpretation,
which safeguarded the rights of his church.
Right of visitation once in every five years was
conceded to the archbishop, who must visit in
person, not by deputy. The visitation was
strictly private : all the archbishop’s attendants
were to retire after his opening address, and two
of the canons were to act as his assessors.
Complaints and corrigenda were to be presented
by the chapter in common and viva voce: written
presentations were prohibited. The archbishop’s
business was strictly confined to a general
injunction to the chapter to make their own
corrections within a stated time; and only in
case of neglect within that period was the arch-
bishop empowered to carry them out himself.
The chapter further provided against intrusion
by making good their right of appeal, with the
usual lengthy procedure. This one-sided
arrangement, however, was not final. Arch-
bishop Melton, some thirty-five years later,
attempted to override the compromise, and the
chapter appealed to the pope, who committed

See Archbp. Wickwane’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), Introd.
p. iii.

5! Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 155-7.

5 These divisions were effected in May and Oct.
1295. One portion of Masham was known as Land-
ford: the second portion of Langtoft was called
Cottam. Roger Marmion was collated to the whole
prebend of Langtoft 13 Feb. 1295-6, a month
before Romanus’ death (York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus,
Capitula).

58 Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), tii, 220-1.

5 Tbid. 216-20.

the case to William Ayermin, Bishop of Norwich,
and Hugh of Angouléme, Archdeacon of Can-
terbury.° Before the case could be heard the
disputants arranged a compromise, which was
confirmed by the commissioners in 1328. By
this agreement, which remained in force until
the Reformation period, the archbishop was
allowed to visit once in four instead of five
years, and at two instead of three months’ notice.
He was allowed his own assessors, three or four
clerks, and a writer not a public notary. The
corrigenda were first to be presented publicly by
the chapter in common; but afterwards the arch-
bishop, if he wished, might proceed to a private
examination of individuals, whose complaints
were to be invited without any threat of penalties,
and were to be taken down in writing verbatim,
without addition or comment. These written
corrigenda were to be handed over to the dean
and chapter that day or the next, and a period
of ten months was fixed within which the dean
and chapter were to act upon them. In case of
neglect the archbishop might proceed to correc-
tion, after due notice and consultation with the
canons. His procurations were fixed at 100s.,
to be paid at his first visitation, and not to be
demanded again."® In spite of thisagreement, dis-
sensions continued between Melton and the chap-
ter, of which there are traces as late as 1335 ;”
and somewhat earlier a minor cause of quarrel
had arisen over the right of sequestration in
respect of the treasurership.™

The Great Pestilence of 1349 appears to have
worked some havoc among the dignitaries of the
church : the offices of precentor, chancellor, and
treasurer were vacant during the year, and the
sub-deanery changed hands three times within
three months. Serious quarrels took place, at
York as at Beverley, between the chapter and _
Archbishop Alexander Nevill, who attempted to
call in question the privileges of the canons upon
their prebendal estates, and usurped the rights
of the chapter in the manors and churches appro-
priated to the common fund.®! The canons
held their own, and called in the protection of
the king, who took the right of collation into his
own hands. Between June 1386 and September
1388 the Patent Rolls are full of collations to the
prebends and ratifications of the estates of preben-

* Bishop Ayermin, as noted above, had been a
canon of York. Hugh of Angouléme was collated
to the prebend of Riccall 4 July 1324 (York Archi-
epis. Reg. Melton, fol. 82 d.).

°° York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 103 d.—1o5 d.

" Cal. Pat, 1334-8, p. 192.

58 York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 86.

® Cal. Pat. 1348-50, pp. 271, 295, 340; see also
Le Neve, Fasti, ili, 154, 160, 164. Of prebends
vacant by death, only three are recorded in York
Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 230 d.—232 d.

% Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 423-4.

379

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

daries.” After Nevill’s deprivation, the succeeding
vacancies in the archbishopric at short intervals
gave the Crown much patronage.™ Henry IV
appears to have usurped the archbishop’s rights
of collation after the battle of Shrewsbury : this
was one cause of Scrope’s rebellion,™ the failure
of which was followed by a further succession of
Crown appointments.” The fabric of the quire
of the church, which was approaching comple-
tion in Scrope’s lifetime, was hindered during
these turbulent times ; and the work of the great
tower in 1407-8 was endangered by a dispute
which broke out between the local masons and
the master-mason appointed by the king, ap-
parently upon the question of imported labour.
The chapter visitations of the 14th and 15th
centuries indicate a careless condition of affairs,
which, however, was by no means peculiar to
York. Non-residence throughout the 15th cen-
tury was on the increase. In 1409 the precentor
was found to neglect the payment of the sub-
chanter’s salary as master of the song-school.
In 1472 the precentor and chancellor were non-
resident in defiance of the statutes: the residen-
tiaries failed to appear at church, so that on
double festivals the high altar was served by the
parsons and vicars, and the custom observed by
the residentiaries of saying mass at the high altar
four times in the octaves of Christmas, Easter,
and Pentecost was neglected. The services
were often slovenly : there was much talking
and laughing outside the quire doors, even during
mass. The parsons, instead of taking their place
in the Sunday procession at the proper time, would
wait for it in the nave and aisles, and stroll to
meet it. One of them, who was treasurer of
the fabric fund, presented no accounts. Notice
is taken elsewhere of the shortcomings of the
vicars. Dogs were suffered to roam about the
nave, and howled and barked so that those
in the quire could not hear the lection for the
day." In 1472, 1481, 1495, and 1519, there
are long catalogues of defects in the churches,
both in York and elsewhere, belonging to the
chapter and its individual members.”
Archbishop Lee made a visitation of the
chapter in August 1534, in which he abode by
the composition of 1328 with regard to the
comperta and corrigenda, but issued decrees of his
own on general points. He commented upon
the fewness of residentiaries, the unwillingness of
the canons to give copes and palfreys to the
church, and asked for a remedy against the with-

See Cal. Pat. 1385-9, pp. 159, 200, 216, &c.
Sixteen collations, &c., occur between Feb. and June
1389.

® See Cal. Pat. 1396-9, passim.

* Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), iti, 431.

* Cal. Pat. 1405-8, pp. 24, 35, 45, &c.

* Thid. p. 482.

* York Fabric Rolls (Surt. Soc.), 245.

* Ibid. 250 et seq, ® Ibid. 253, &c.

holding of pensions payable from impropriators
to whom the chapter had leased their churches.
Criminous women were forbidden to dwell
within the close. Non-resident canons, if they
happened to be in York, were enjoined to attend
matins, processions, high mass, and vespers,
especially on doubles and principal feasts.”
These mild injunctions were followed, in Lee’s
lifetime, by the royal statutes of 1541. The
expenses of the major residence were so irksome
that prebendaries could not meet them from the
fruits of their prebends, and therefore seldom
came into residence atall. Only one prebendary
was resident at the date of the statutes. The
new measures, while changing none of the
ordinary conditions of the major residence, re-
moved its extraordinary burdens. The possi-
bility of depriving the church of any resi-
dentiaries was guarded against by the provision
that one residentiary out of two or three, two
out of four or six, three or two out of five, must
be present throughout the year. ‘Twenty-four
weeks constituted a minimum residence. If
there was only one residentiary, his minimum
was thirty weeks, and his presence was required
on all double feasts. The entertainment by
each canon of four vicars in his major and two
in his minor residence was discontinued, and a
yearly money payment wassubstituted. Nocanon
was allowed to reside who had not a prebendal
house in the close or could not spend £100 year.
To guard against the entire control of funds by
the residentiaries, all canons, irrespective of resi-
dence, were to be summoned to chapter meetings.
The chancellor, as in the older statutes, was
enjoined to find preachers : these, however, were
to be paid from a fund to which the prebendaries
contributed in common. ‘The preachers were
to have the archbishop’s licence ; but the dean,
chancellor, and others were not therefore excused
from the duty of preaching themselves.”

By charter of 20 April 1547 Edward VI con-
firmed to the dean and chapter their spiritual
jurisdiction within the common possessions and
their various prebends.” In this year the trea-
surership of the church was resigned to the
Crown, and the annexed prebend of Bishop
Wilton disappeared with it. The monastic pre-
bends of Salton and Bramham were suppressed
with the priories of Hexham and Nostell. The
two rich prebends of South Cave and Marsham
were also secularized as a result of the Reforma-
tion. Of the remaining prebends, Driffield,
annexed to the precentorship, and Laughton,
annexed to the chancellorship in 1484,"4 con-

” York Archiepis. Reg. Lee, fol. 93 d. ; printed in
Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xvi, 433-5.

7 Statutes printed in Monasticon, vi, 1200-2. These
and the other statutes of the church were also printed
privately by the late Canon Raine in 1879.

™ Lawton, Coll. Rer. Eccl. 1-2. ™ Ibid. 2-4.

™ York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, fol. ggd.-100 d.

380

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

tinued on the same footing. A list of prebends,
drawn up early in the reign of Elizabeth, shows
how freely the chapter property was leased at this
time to laymen, who trafficked in the lands of
the church without restraint. A boy of fifteen
or sixteen, a kinsman of Archbishop Young, was
admitted to the prebends of Husthwaite and
Barnby, and enjoyed their fruits without a dis-
pensation, while pursuing his studies at Oxford.
The prebends of Osbaldwick and Grindale had
been leased to the archbishop’s secretary, and
had been sold by him.’> The nepotism of Arch-
bishop Sandys in the matter of collations to pre-
bends was one chief cause of his unpopularity.”

Royal injunctions in 1547 laid special stress
upon preaching and the study of theology by the
chapter. A library was to be set up in the
church within a year, and four English Bibles
were to be provided, two in quire, and two else-
where for the use of lay-folk. The canonical
hours were fixed so as to avoid services after dark
as faras possible. Choral copes were forbidden ;
and the number of daily masses was restricted to
one at nine in the morning.” Archbishop
Holgate’s injunctions of 15 August 1552
followed out the spirit of these commands,
formulating a table of preaching turns, and
establishing lectures in divinity for the benefit
of the inferior clergy of the church, who were
to submit to a monthly examination upon their
subjects. The duty of constant reading of the
Scriptures and committing them to memory was
enforced on the vicars choral and deacons. The
church was to be cleared of all its provision for
images of the saints, and texts of Scripture were
to be painted up on the cleansed surface of the
walls. ‘The organ was silenced, and singing
was practically confined to Sundays and festivals.”
Grindal’s injunctions of 10 October 1572 revised
Holgate’s order of preaching turns. While
Holgate had provided for the devout and frequent
reception of the Blessed Sacrament, Grindal,
allowing the chapter some discretion with regard
to celebrations on Sundays and festivals, fixed
compulsory communion at once a month, viz.,
on six festivals and six times on the first Sundays
of months in which these festivals did not fall.
He also took order for the revision of the statutes.”
Such archiepiscopal injunctions were rendered
possible by the changed conditions of the church.
The republic which had imposed a compromise
upon Romanus and Melton was fettered by new
regulations. The dean, its president, was no
longer freely elected by the chapter, but by a
congé @élirefrom the Crown. At the same time,
Grindal’s_ proposed alteration of the statutes
never came into effect.

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1174 n.

78 See ‘Eccl. Hist.’ above, p. 54.

7 Frere, Visit. and Injunctions, ii, 153-7
78 Ibid. ii, 310-12.

” Ibid. iii, 45-54.

381

The injunctions concerning Holy Communion
seem to have produced some slackness, for cele-
brations were practically confined to the great
festivals until in 1617 Dean Meriton established
a celebration once a month.® At the Restora-
tion Archbishop Frewen did something to improve
the state of the services, and brought back the
organ, which, if it had not fallen into disuse as
the result of Holgate’s strict measures, had been
removed during the Puritan ascendency.®* Arch-
bishop Dolben’s injunctions, which bear date
10 April 1685, provided for the more decent
conduct of services, and restored the weekly
communion which Holgate had encouraged.®
But, even during the most reverent period of the
17th century, the services suffered from defects,
on which the famous letter of Charles I to the
dean and chapter supplies some information.®

The statutes of residence were revised by royal
injunctions in 1698. In the 18th century the
resident chapter and governing body of the church
consisted of the dean and four residentiary preben-
daries, each of whom resided for a quarter of the
year, and drew hisstipend from his prebend. The
remaining prebendaries received incomes from their
prebends, but their connexion with the church
was little more than nominal. The richer pre-
bends were leased out, and the fines paid for
renewal of leasesamounted to a considerable sum.
This state of things continued until 1840-1.
In 1836 the list of prebendaries shows that the
stalls were held for the most part by wealthy
pluralists, whose chief benefices were in other
dioceses.8* The Act of 3and 4 Victoria deprived
succeeding prebendaries of their prebendal in-
comes, and thus converted the tenure of a stall
into a distinction for honourable service within
the diocese. The decanal congé d’élre was
abolished, and the appointment to the deanery
became subject to royal Letters Patent. Four
residentiary canonries, also in the appointment of
the Crown, were provided with fixed yearly
stipends ; these, to which a prebendal stall is not
necessarily attached, are now in the collation of
the archbishop. The dignities of precentor and
chancellor, to which the stalls of Driffield and
Laughton are still annexed, are usually, though
not of necessity, held by residentiaries ; while
the offices of treasurer and sub-treasurer since the
Reformation have devolved upon the dean.

There are three seals of the chapter in the
British Museum collection, of the 13th,®

® Ornsby, Dioc. Hist. of York, 400.

*! Bradshaw and Wordsworth, op. cit. 94 n.

* Ornsby, op. cit. 399-400.

8 See ‘Eccl. Hist.’ above.

* See the official clergy list, drawn up for the Royal
Commission in that year. The fines from prebends
in the last three years are noted in the list ; those
from Knaresborough prebend amounted to £2,688,
those from Fenton and Warthill to £2,500 each.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Each

17th," and 18th ® centuries respectively.
is a vesica with a fizure of St. Peter.

208. THE BEDERN, YORK

The existence of vicars choral at York, as in
other collegiate establishments, was the natural
result of non-residence on the part of the canons,
who delegated their duties in the church to
deputies. The appointment of king’s clerks,
whose ordinary occupations made them incapable
of constant residence, to canonries was a custom
of early growth, and thus vicars came into being
by degrees. In process of time each of the thirty-
six canons had his own vicar. Although they
were not incorporated by royal Letters Patent
until a late date, the vicars possessed common
property as early as the 13th century, and were
placed in the time of Archbishop Gray under the
control of the sub-chanter, whose duties as war-
den and keeper of their common fund were
similar to those of the provosts of Beverley
and other colleges.’ Their common dwelling,
known as the Bedern, was given to them by
William of Laneham, canon of York, before
12487; the name Bedern, which was in use at
Beverley to signify the common hall of the
college, probably means a ‘ house of prayer,’ and
was thus appropriated to the dwelling of clergy
who were continually occupied in the service of
the church.?

Many grants of property were made to the
vicars and their warden during the 14th century.
In 1331 Henry le Vavasour granted them the
advowson of Ferry Fryston, out of which they
were to maintain three chantry priests, two in
York Minster and one in the chapel of Hazlewood
or the church of Fryston.* The area of the
Bedern was enlarged in 1335 by the grant of a
piece of land at the corner of Aldwark and St.
Andrew’s Street made by the mayor and com-
monalty of York.’ In 1339-40 they were
appointed trustees for the chantry in the minster
and the obit provided for by the will of Nicholas
of Huggate, Provost of Beverley.6 In 1348,
Thomas de Ottely and William de Cotingham
founded a chapel in the Bedern in honour of
the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin and St.
Katherine.’ There was also a chantry of 5
marks value attached to this chapel.* Although
they had received no formal charter of incorpora-

%’ Thid. 2372, lix, 45.

' Dugdale, Mon. vi, 1475.

* Ibid. ; see a qualifying note by Raine, Archdp.
Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 245

* See A. F. Leach, Beverley Chapter Act Book (Surt.
Soc.), i, pp. 1, li.

* Cal, Pat. 1330-4, p. 103.

*Thid. 1334-8, p. 163.

* Ibid. 1338-40, p. 417.

7 Drake, Ebor. 573. ® Ibid.

tion they are called the college of thirty-six vicars
in the Letters Patent of 1 January 1393-4, by
which they received a grant in frankalmoign of
the advowson of St. Sampson’s in consideration of
their purpose to resume their original common
life in their hall by the churchyard of the minster.°
They are stated to have been living in separate
houses—a dispersion which was probably en-
couraged by their condition under Archbishop
Nevill, whose tyranny was most successfully
exercised over them.” The grant of St. Samp-
son’s was made on condition that the vicars
should keep the obit of Richard II and his queen
yearly, and chant an appropriate antiphon and
collect daily after compline before the image of
St. John the Baptist in the minster.”

The revival of the common life of the Bedern
is marked by the grant, in May 1396, of a licence
to construct a gallery from the solar of the
vicars’ gatehouse to that of the gatehouse of the
close, on the other side of Goodramgate, and so
avoid the risk of crossing the street on their way
to and from service, especially after dark. In
June of the same year vicars who were enter-
tained, according to custom, by the residentiaries,
were restrained from sharing the fruits of St.
Sampson’s during these absences.’ The alloca-
tion of these fruits to the common fund and
individual vicars was determined by an ordinance
of the dean and chapter, bearing date 24 May
1399.4 No vicarage was ordained in St. Samp-
son’s, and Henry IV in 1403 allowed the church
to be served by a sufficient conduct, without
endowment of a vicarage."®

The habits of the vicars for some years before
the revival of the Bedern are indicated by the
comperta at some of the chapter visitations. Some
of them in 1362 walked about the streets dressed
like laymen and wearing knives and daggers.’®
In 1375 they objected to the use of the organ on
the quire-screen at high festivals unless they were
treated to wine by the residentiaries.” An order
in 1408 was made forbidding the service of wine
to them at or after meals, which led to a serious
quarrel with the chapter and the expulsion of the
sub-chanter.'8

The incorporation of the vicars as a college,
with the sub-chanter as warden, was obtained
from Henry V by Letters Patent bearing date
26 May 1421. In 1459, the dean and chapter
acquired the advowson and impropriation of
Nether Wallop, in Hampshire,!™ on their behalf.

® Cal. Pat. 1391-6, p. 386.

” See Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 323.
" Cal. Pat. 1391-6, p. 386.

” Ibid. 1391-6, p. 712.

3 Ibid. p. 725.

“Ibid. 1399-1401, p. 172.

% Tbid. 1401-5, p. 235.

" Ibid. 243. * Thid. 244.
” Cal. Pat. 1416-22, p. 360.

Thid. 1452-61, p. 512.

382

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

The most important addition to their property
was the royal grant in 1484 of the ad-
vowson of the church of Cottingham with
licence to appropriate.” A visitation in 1472
shows that the non-resident canons left the entire
control of the minster to the vicars, and that the
vicars were not careful of their trust. Some of
them came into church as late and went out as
early as possible. Quire services did not begin
until some time after the last peal had sounded.
The sub-chanter and three vicars were incontinent.
Frequent absence from church was common ;
and, while the statutes required twelve vicars to
be present daily on each side of the quire, as many
as four were rarely to be found in their places.
The Bedern gate was often left open and without
a light until ten o’clock at night. Among the
vicars, John Fell was conspicuous for his misdeeds.
He said mass hardly once a fortnight ; he was a
nightwalker, seldom returning home by ten
o'clock ; he talked and laughed in quire, and
excited some envy and strife by the messages
which were brought to him in the common hall
from ‘temporal lords.’ When the Bible was
read in hall, Fell and others would sit by the fire
and talk.”

Carelessness of this kind was probably respon-
sible for the neglected state of the minster in
1519.” At the visitation of 1544-5 there were
very few vicars, and several were in ill-health,
while those who could attend to their duties took
their full period of leave, as they had done when
the college was full.” In 1546-7 their property
was valued with that of other colleges, and was
sold; it amounted to a yearly revenue of
£255 75. 8d.%* It was subsequently restored to
them ; but the number of vicars was reduced,
and the college, as it exists to-day, consists of a
sub-chanter and four vicars, the revenues of whose
estates have been commuted for fixed stipends.

209. ST. MARY AND THE HOLY
ANGELS, YORK, alias ST. SEPULCHRE’S

The college of St. Mary and the Holy
Angels, York, was founded some time between
the years 1154 and 1161 by Archbishop Roger
de Pont l’Evéque,! who endowed it with ten
churches and their revenues, of which Otley
(a moiety), Everton, Sutton, Hayton, Bardsey and
the chapel of Scrooby were the archbishop’s
own gift ; the other four were Calverley of the
gift of William de Scoty, a moiety of Hooton
Pagnell of the gift of William Paynell, Hare-

” Cal. Pat. 1476-85, p. 507.

” York Fabric Rolls (Surt. Soc.), 251 seq.
” Thid. 267 seq.

8 Tbid. 273-4

* Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 28.

1 Walbran, Guide to Ripon, 25.

wood of the gift of Avice de Rumilly, and
Thorp Arch of the gift of Adam de Bruys and
Ivetta his wife.?

The college was to consist of thirteen mem-
bers. ‘They were not called canons or preben-
daries in the charter, but c/erici. One of them
was to be the sacrist, four were to be priests,
four deacons, and four sub-deacons. Each priest
was to have an annual stipend of 10 marks,
each deacon was to have /5, and each sub-
deacon 6 marks. The sacrist was to administer
the college finance, his own stipend to be at
least 10 marks. If the revenue arising from the
college properties were not at any time sufficient
to pay the stipends of the staff, amounts pro rata
were to be deducted from the various stipends, so
as to leave a clear net income of 10 marks for
the sacrist ; but if there were more than sufhi-
cient for the stipends, then the surplus was to
go to augment the stipend of the sacrist. The
witnesses to the document were Robert the
dean, Hamo the precentor, Master Guy, Ralph
and John the archdeacons.

The collegiate society continued under this
constitution until May 1258, when Archbishop
Sewall de Bovill added to the original number
two priests, who should say ‘mass for the dead
every day,’ together with two deacons and two
sub-deacons, making a total membership of the
society, with the sacrist, of seventeen. With
regard to the twelve existing canons, it was
enacted that each of them residing in the city,
near the chapel, should attend the various offices,
and for each attendance at matins should receive
1d., at high mass 1d., and at vespers 1d.,—3d.
daily. If absent 1d. was to be deducted for each
‘hour,’ a like deduction to be made even when
present if they were quarrelsome or insolent.
The new members of the college were to be
present at the hours and high mass with the
other ministers of the chapel, and were to say
Placebo, Dirige, and other offices for the dead.
And when the canons and ministers, through
neglect or any other cause, should omit to say the
office for the dead, the duty was to devolve upon
the new members of the college. Each of the
two priests was to receive 5 marks, each deacon
3 marks, and each sub-deacon 24 marks yearly
from the sacrist. For absence a priest was to
forfeit 1d., and a deacon or sub-deacon 4d.

This ordination of 1258 confirmed the
patronage of the prebends and sacristy to the
archbishops, whilst the appointment and _ re-
moval® of the six additional members pertained ,
to the sacrist. It also made provision that the
services at the churches® appropriated to the

* Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1182.

® Thid. * Ibid.

° The six could be dismissed at will by the sacrist.

® These churches were Thorp Arch, Collingham,
Bardsey, Otley, Calverley, Hooton Pagnell, Sutton,
Everton, Hayton, Clarborough, Retford.

383

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

college should not be neglected, and in each of
them a vicarage was ordained, the presentations
to be in the hands of the sacrist. “The sacrist
at the time of Sewall’s ordination was Gilbert
de Tiwa, and at the end of the document it was
ordered that, ‘Since the labourer is worthy of
his hire, and Master Gilbert de Tiwa has worked
faithfully,’ a solemn anniversary shall be cele-
brated in his honour each year in the cathedral
as well as in the chapel and the various churches
belonging to it.’

The invocation of the college chapel was
‘St. Mary and the Holy Angels.’ It has some-
times, but mistakenly, been called the chapel of
the ‘Blessed Mary, St. Michael and the Holy
Angels,’® and frequently it was referred to, in
the later stages of its history, as ‘St. Sepulchre’s
Chapel.’® When it was first called by that
name, and why, is not clear. The explanation
is probably connected with the duties of the six
officers appointed in 1258, who had, among
other things, to celebrate daily in the chapel for
the dead. But other explanations have been
adduced.”

In the two lists of churches belonging to the
college there are differences. In Archbishop
Sewall’s ordination Harewood Churchand Scrooby
Chapel! are missing, whilst Collingham, Clar-
borough and Retford are additional to Arch-
bishop Roger’s list. Harewood disappeared be-
cause of a claim made against the canons that
the patronage belonged to the lord of the manor
of Harewood. ‘Trials took place in 1201 and
1209, and judgement was given against the
sacrist.1? Collingham was conferred upon the
college by Richard de Morville.’ The circum-
stances connected with the acquisition of Clar-
borough and Retford are not known. The
church of Hooton Pagnell had been originally
given to Holy Trinity Priory, York, then later
it was given by William Paynell to Nostell
Priory, the donor threatening with a curse any-
one who should interfere with the benefaction.”
But, notwithstanding the malediction, the same
William granted a moiety to Archbishop Roger
for his new foundation.’® The other half of the
church belonged to the priory at York, though
the chapel of St. Mary seems invariably to have

7 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1182-3.

§ Stapleton, Holy Trinity Priory, 47 n., 107.

9 Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 5.

4 But Scrooby Chapel was probably included under
Sutton, for it remained at the Suppression (see Yorks.
Chant. Surv. [Surt. Soc.], 6).

” Stapleton, Holy Trinity Priory, 47 and note.

8 Lawton, Col/. Rerum Eccl. 59.

4 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 682, from Rec. de Term.
Trin. 3 Hen. IV. rot. 14, Scacc. penes Remem,
Regis.

16 Ibid. 107.

exercised the right of patronage. The matter
was probably arranged by a money payment to
Holy Trinity, which was received until the
Dissolution.”

According to Chancellor Raine, the founder
took special care that there should be no collision
between the new college and the minster staff.
But, this care notwithstanding, frequent mis-
understandings arose. The college was too near
the cathedral’® for perfect harmony, and the
minster clergy looked with jealous eyes upon the
new canons. As time wore on, however, they
seemed to fuse, especially when the chapel canons
relieved the cathedral clergy of some of their
duties, and when the prebends of the chapel
were tenable in plurality with the cathedral
canonries.’®

A considerable disturbance took place in con-
nexion with the sacristy about 1290. Thomas
de Corbridge, the future primate, in that year
resigned the minster chancellorship in order to
accept the sacristy. Then he discovered that
there was much litigation with respect to the
revenues of the college, and taking advantage of
his conditional acceptance of the office he re-
sumed his stall as chancellor. But a new chan-
cellor had been appointed meanwhile, and great
friction ensued, in the end Corbridge being
under excommunication for the greater part of a
year.” In the following year there was a dis-
pute concerning the tithes at Coliingham and
Bardsey between Corbridge and the Abbot of
Kirkstall, but the matter was amicably arranged.”!

The sacristy and prebends became very lucra-
tive possessions,” and were often held by dis-
tinguished ecclesiastics.*? But just before the
Dissolution things appear to have become some-
what slack, and Archbishop Lee, in a visitation
made in 1534, complained of a number of
irregularities,* which he ordered to be remedied.
The college was, of course, untouched by the
Dissolution, but was suppressed with other
similar institutions in the reign of Edward VI.

The 1546 survey gives the balance sheet,
showing a ‘clere’ remainder of £165 115. 114.,
and also the stipends and other charges according
to the foundation rate as £161 15. 8d.% The

“The Pope Nicholas Taxation (Rec. Com. 299é)
gives the payment as {10 135. 4¢.3; in 1538 it was
£9 6s. 8d. (Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 685).

16 It stood between the north aisle of the nave and
the archbishop’s palace. The built-up wall of the
door leading from the chapel to the minster may still
be seen.

Mag. J. de Waltham, e.g., was a cathedral canon
and sacrist of the chapel in 1387 (Fasti Ebor. 464 n.)

* Fasti Ebor. 354, 355.

"| Pat. 16 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 6.

" Fasti Ebor. 354.

% Sacrist Corbridge, e.g., became primate, and
Sacrist Gilbert Segrave became Bishop of London.

* Brit. Assoc. Handbk. (York), 176-7.

> Yorks. Chant, Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 6, 7.

384

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

£548 report gives details of the stipends of the
staff, their ages, their condition, and also, with
a view to the arranging of the pensions, their
stipends from other sources. The sacrist,
Thomas Magnus, was eighty-six years of age,
and besides his stipend of £43 55. held other
benefices to the value of £572 85. gd., and most
of the prebendaries also possessed additional
sources of income.”®

On the 1548 certificate is also a memorandum
showing a sum of £26 135. 4d. distributed
yearly to the poor in the appropriated parishes.”

SACRISTS

Gilbert de Tiwa, occurs 1236,” died 1266

Peter de Erehun, appointed 1266 *°

Percival de Lavannia, died 1290 *!

Thomas de Corbridge, appointed
occurs 1296 %8

Francis Gaeteno, occurs 1300 *

John Bouhs, appointed 1300 *°

Gilbert de Segrave, occurs 1304 %

John Bouhs alas Busshe, appointed 1304,%7
occurs 1333 8

John de Waltham,® occurs 1387, 1388 #

Roger Weston, appointed 1388,” 1397 #

John Gisburne, appointed 1459

Thomas Magnus, occurs 1546,* 1548 48

1290,”

The r4th-century seal‘” of the canons is a
vesica, 28in. by 1%in., with a design of our
Lady, crowned and seated, holding the child.
Above is the sun between two angels issuing
from cloud who support the canopy of the chair
and the crown of the Virgin. On either side of
her chair is a candle, and below isa mitred figure
praying, probably representing Archbishop Roger
de Pont l’Evéque, the founder. The legend is :
s’ CANONICOR CAPELLE BE MARIE ET ANGELOR

EBOR.

* Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 428-30.
7 Ibid. 430.

*® Archbp. Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 74.

® Cal. Pat. 1258-66, p. 557.

% Tbid.

3! Fasti Ebor. 354

3 Cal. Pat. 1292-1301, p. 197.

* Fasti Ebor. 356.

% Cal, Pat. 1292-1301, p. $12.

” Cal. Pat. 1301-7, p. 227.

8 Ibid. 1330-4, p. 396.

8° Archdeacon of Richmond.

* Cal. Pat. 1385-9, p. 348.

" Thid. 498.

“ Thid. 503.

® Tbid. 1396-9, p. 83.

“ Hist. of Hemingbrough, 75.

* Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 5.
6 Thid. 428.

*” Cat. of Seals, B.M. 4396, xlvii, 725.

* Thid.

3 385

210. ST. WILLIAM’S COLLEGE,
YORK

In connexion with the cathedral church of
York, a great number of chantries were founded
from time to time. By the middle of the 15th
century, in addition to those served by priests
connected with the Bedern and St. Sepulchre’s,
there were no less than twenty-three whose in-
cumbents were unattached to any corporate
body. On 11 March 1455, therefore, King
Henry VI, knowing that these priests, for want
of a proper habitation, had to lodge in laymen’s
houses where women were, which was repug-
nant to the order of the church and the decency
of the clergy, granted licence to Archbishop
William Booth, Henry, Earl of Northumber-
land, Richard Andrew, dean, John Castell, pre-
centor, John Bernyngham, treasurer, Stephen
Wilton, Archdeacon of Cleveland, and John
Marshall, canon of York, to erect a college for
these unattached priests. The place intended
was the house appropriated to the prebend which
the Prior of Hexham held, namely, Salton
House,’ but the licence also added ‘or any other
convenient place as they may think fit”? The
college was to be dedicated to the honour of
St. William, sometime Archbishop of York, and
was to be called ‘The College of Parsons having
Chantries in the Metropolitical Church of York.’
The priests were to elect yearly one of them-
selves to supervise the rest of his fellow-priests,
their college and goods, and for that year he was
to be called the ‘supervisor’ of the college.
They were to be a corporate body, and the dean
and chapter were to make statutes for their
governance.? The king also gave permission
for the college to purchase lands, &c., to the
value of 10 marks yearly, in order to recom-
pense the dean and chapter and the prior for |
their house, as well as for the maintenance of
the college when built; such lands when
acquired to be given to the dean and chapter
and prior.

This grant was never carried into effect.‘
King Edward IV, however, on 11 May 1461,°

‘made a re-grant of the licence with certain im-

portant differences. The licence was given to
George Nevill, Bishop of Exeter, who became
Archbishop of York three years later, and to his
brother Richard, Earl of Warwick, and their
heirs conjointly and severally. Instead of an
annually elected supervisor there was to be a
provost appointed for life, the first to be chosen
from among the chantry priests by the said

'Torre’s MS. (Minster) gives ‘Salton House’ in
the margin. See also Drake’s Eboracum.

* Torre’s MS. (Minster), fol. 1400.

3 Tbid.

*Drake’s Ebor. 57.

>Pat. 1 Edw. IV. pt.ii,m.17; Torre’s MS.
(Minster), fol. 1401.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

bishop and earl or their heirs. The priests were
to be called ‘ fellows.” Vacancies in the pro-
vostry were to be filled within six days by the
election of one of the fellows, to be decided by
a majority of votes, such election always to be
held in the mansion-house of the fellows. The
college properties were to be administered by
the provost for the general good of the house,
and he was to have precedence over all his
brethren ‘in pre-eminence, priority, honour, and
residence,’ in all offices, masses, vespers, and
processions, and no fellow was to intermeddle in
any matter without the express command of the
provost. They were to be a body corporate and
have a common seal.@ The provost was to
choose the principal chamber for himself, and
allocate chambers to the others. A committee
of the provost and three of the brethren, who
were to be chosen by the provost, were to have
power to ordain statutes for the government of
the college. All infringements of those statutes,
&c., were to be punished by the committee,
who, at their discretion, might expel from the
college when necessary. The king also granted
licence for the college to purchase lands, &c., to
the annual value of 100 marks, with which they
were to recompense the dean and chapter and
other canons residentiary for the properties given
to the fellows for their dwelling-place.” The
site, as proposed by the grant of Edward IV,
was to be ‘within the close of the said church in
any messuage or place belonging to any canon-
ship, or in any other place within the city.’ ®
Probably the place eventually selected included
Salton House. At all events when the college
was suppressed one of the items of annual ex-
penditure was, ‘to the prebendarye of the pre-
bend of Salton for rente out of the saide college,
40s.’ °

The building was taken in hand at once, it
appears; and on 25 January 1465 a royal
grant was made to the provost, ‘ Christopher
Borough, and the brethren of St. William, York,
ofall those stones called “ freestone ” lying within
the quarry of Hodlestone by the bank of the
River Ouse, for the better building of the col-
lege.’ Further evidence of the building of the
house is to be found in a will made March
1466-7 by John Marshall," one of the fellows.

°Torre’s MS. (Minster), fol. 1402.

"Ibid.

Ibid. fol. 1401.

® Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 8.

Pat. 4 Edw. IV. pt. ii, m. 7.

"He was the canon mentioned in the grant of
Henry VI.

‘I bequeath,’ he says, ‘for the building of the
college by the parsons my brethren of the
Cathedral Church, within the close of the same
church, newly begun, 20s. I also leave for the
use of the chapel of the said college, when it
shall have been entirely finished, my portiferium
cum boses and one book of morals to be chained
in the said chapel.’ ”

In the 1546 survey the possessions of the col-
lege in York, Wilberfoss, Cleveland, Drax,
Kirkburn, Gowdall, Rillington, | Haworth,
Helperthorpe, and ‘Tollerton, amounted to
£22 125. 8d. a year. The yearly outgoings
were {2 135. 6d. leaving a balance of
£19 19s. 14d. The goods were assessed at
£7 6s. 8d., and plate £12 185. The 1548
survey gives the yearly income as £25 75. 84.,
the outgoings £2 115. 74d., the clear remainder
£22 16s. o4d., the provost being John Corney,
sixty-one years of age, indifferently learned, but
of honest conversation and qualities, with qos.
as his yearly portion out of the college, besides
£8 for his chantry in the cathedral.’ Twenty-
seven chantries were held by fellows of the
college in 1546.

There were, of course, other chantries in the
Minster served by the vicars choral and others,
and it is difficult to separate them.

According to the 1546 survey, the college
was ‘to be continued.’ But the recommendation
was ignored, and in 3 Edward VI the site
was granted to Michael Stanhope and John
Belloe.'®

Provosts

Christopher Borough, occurs 1465
Thomas Fox, occurs 1528
Thomas Fairehere, occurs 1546 ?
John Corney, occurs 1548”

The 14th-century seal,?! a vesica 23 in. by
1} in., has a figure of St. William, the arch-
bishop, seated and blessing. Below is a lozengy
shield of his traditional arms. ‘The legend is:

s’ COMMUNE COLLEGII SCI WILELMI EBORACENSIS

"York Fabric R. (Surt. Soc.), 72 n.
8 Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 6.
“Thid. 430.

% Ibid. g-25.

1% Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), v, 253.

19 Yorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 9.
*Tbid. 430.

" Cat. of Seals, B.M. 4403, lxxv, 43.

386

RELIGIOUS

ALIEN

211. THE PRIORY OF ALLERTON
MAULEVERER

The priory of Allerton Mauleverer was a cell
to the abbey of Marmoutier. It was founded in
the reign of Henry I by Richard Mauleverer,’
whose gifts Henry II confirmed, also making the
monks free from all exactions of wapentakes,
tridings, and danegeld, and from all manner of
secular exactions and foreign service.”

An inquisition was held at Wetherby in
August 1378,? when the jurors found that there
was at Allerton Mauleverer a certain priory be-
longing to the abbey of Marmoutier, that there
was a dilapidated hall with chambers annexed,
and other offices of the house, worth nothing
beyond the reprises. ‘The prior and monks at
Allerton Mauleverer held the church there to
their own proper uses. In all, the jurors esti-
mated the possessions of the priory as yielding, on
an average, {20 135. 4d. a year. ‘The reprises
included for repairs of the chancel of the
church and other buildings of the priory 30s.
a year, for the maintenance of the prior and
two monks* who celebrated divine offices
there, with other necessaries, £20. The
obligations amounted to £24, so that the ex-
penses exceeded the revenue by 66s. 8d. a year.

According to Burton,® the Abbot of Mar-
moutier was patron, and he appointed the prior,
who was admitted by the Archdeacon of Rich-
mond,

The priory of Allerton Mauleverer was
granted by Henry VI to King’s College, Cam-
bridge.® Of its internal history nothing is on
record.

Priors oF ALLERTON MAULEVERER

Waleran, c. 12357

Gilbert, c. 1245 °

Geoffrey, occurs 1300 °

John Dugas, occurs 1344

Dionis Kabarus, occurs 1362 1

William de Virgulto, occurs 1364”
John Pratt alas Newport, occurs 1364 ¥

? Cal. Doc. France, 445.

? Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1028, where the charter
of Henry II is printed.

5 B.M. Add. MS. 6164, fol. 387.

‘ This indicates the number of monks then in the
priory.

> Burton, Mon. Ebor. 258.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1028.

7 Cott. MS. Claud. D. xi, fol. 60.

8 Tbid. ° Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 1.

" Burton, Mow. Ebor. 258.

® Thid. 8 Tbid.

HOUSES

John Passu, occurs 1366," occurs as Johr
1369"
Guy de Bure 1® aias Ruppe™”

212. THE PRIORY OF BIRSTALL

In 1115 8 Stephen Earl of Albemarle granted
to the Benedictine abbey of St. Martin d’Auchy
in the diocese of Rouen a large amount of pro-
perty in Holderness and the north-east of Lin-
colnshire. Indeed, the property formed the
chief endowment of the abbey. The grant in-
cluded the churches of Birstall, Paull, Skeffling,
Withernsea, Owthorne, and Alborough in Hol-
derness, besides several chapels and considerable
secular property.”

To superintend this English property, the
abbot sent some monks (how many is uncertain)
with a prior or procurator at their head. These
monks formed a small monastic cell at Birstall,
and in June 1219” Archbishop Gray directed
that the chapel of St. Helen at Birstall, where
the monks were, should receive the great and
small tithes of Skeffling, with all obventions and
profits, for the use of the monks. Their chapel
of Birstall was to be in no way subject to the
church of Easington, but the prior was to nomi-
nate a parochial chaplain to the rural dean, re-
movable at the prior’s pleasure. The chaplain
was to report to the dean as to the ‘ excesses’ or
the parishioners, and was to keep chapter. From
the latter provision it would seem that one of the
monks was to be chaplain. In 1229,” with
consent of the abbot, the archbishop varied the
earlier ordinance, at the same time making more
definite the relation of the abbot to some of the
churches.

The inconvenience to the abbey of its main
endowment being in England must have been
very great, for in time of war between the two
countries its chief revenues would be withheld.

In 1381-2% Richard II, having Birstall
Priory in his possession, made a grant of it to

™“ Pipe R. 40 Edw. III.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 1.

Y Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 1.

8 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1019.

” «De Alceio,’ Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 1020, no.
1; ‘d’Alcis,’ or more commonly ‘d’Auchy,’ Fisquet,
La France Pontificale, Metropole de Rouen, 452, ‘Saint
Martin d’Auchy ou d’Aumale.’

” Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1019, no. 1 ; Poulson,
Holderness, ii, §13 3 Burton, Mon. Edor. 298.

” Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1020, no. iii.

” Archbp. Gray’s Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 22. The earlier
appointment of the archbishop was printed (Mon. Ang.
vi, 1020, no. iii) from a document in St. Mary’s
tower, York.

*® Cal. Pat. 1377-81, p. 606.

387

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the Prior and convent of Durham, because they
had no place in the south to keep their live-stock
safely, notwithstanding a previous grant to
Thomas Sees, Prior of Birstall. “They were to
render 200 marks yearly at the exchequer, as the
said Thomas, and § marks in addition, besides
finding a competent maintenance of 10 marks
yearly for the proctor; with power to remove
the remaining alien monks in Birstall Priory, and
replace them by as many English monks, or
secular chaplains from Durham Priory, and after
the death of the then proctor to replace him by
an English one.

This, however, was cancelled, with the assent
of the Prior of Durham, and the king granted
on 18 May 1382 the custody of Birstall to the
Prior of Birstall, John de Harmesthorp, clerk,
and William de Holme.

From this it appears that besides the prior
there were several monks, some of whom had
already left, showing that the cell was of greater
size than other evidences indicate. The seizure
of what was the chief endowment of the abbey
so impoverished it that ‘en 1393 l’abbaye de
Saint-Martin etait tellement ruinée, qu’ a peine
y pouvait-on celebrer l’office divin.’ In 1395”
the abbey of Aumale sold its Holderness pro-
perty to Kirkstall, when the cell of Birstall came
toanend. ‘The property in Lincolnshire and
Holderness was retained by Kirkstall till the
Dissolution.”

Priors oF BiIrsTALL

Gilbert, occurs 1275

Ralph, occurs 1300,” 1304

Richard de Borrence, appointed 1322
Thomas Sees, occurs 1379,*' 1381 *

213. THE PRIORY OF ECCLESFIELD ®

According to Dodsworth, the church of

Ecclesfield was given to the abbey of St. Wan-
drille * in Normandy, by Richard de Lovetot in

* Fisquet, La France Pontificale, Metropole de Rouen,

3.
az Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 1021, no. v; with the

sum they received (10,000 livres tournois), Charles
VI of France permitted them to buy other lands in
France (no. iv).

* Burton, Mon. Ebor. 298-300.

Archbp. Giffards Reg. (Surt. Soc.), 254.

* York Archiepis. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 324,

* Tbid. sed. vac. fol. 36.

°° Tbid. Melton, fol. 289.

31 Cal. Pat. 1377-81, p. 618.

3 Tbid. 606.

3 Several deeds relating to the priory lands are
entered in Add. MS. 27581.

“ Hunter, Ha/lamshire, 258.

** Otherwise known as the abbey of Fontenelle ;
see Fisquet, La France Pontificale, Metropole de Rouen,
386.

the reign of Henry I. In Archbishop Melton’s
register is a confirmation in 1323,*” which re-
cords that at a late visitation of the diocese the
archbishop found that the Abbot and convent of
St. Wandrille, O.S.B., in the diocese of Rouen,
held the church of Ecclesfield, and that the per-
petual vicar of the church, ‘qui a quibusdam
vocatus prior de Eglesfeld,’ had indicated ‘that
Ecclesfield Church had been appropriated to the
abbey by Innocent II and Gregory [ ], for-
merly popes of Rome, that Roger (sic) de ‘ Love-
toftes,” the patron, and at that time lord of
Hallamshire, had given the church, and that
Henry I had confirmed the gift. Archbishop
Melton, at the instance of Hugh le Despenser,
confirmed Ecclesfield Church to the abbey.

A few years earlier Archbishop Greenfield
had also dealt with Ecclesfield Church. He
cited on 24 July 1310 * the Abbot and convent
of St. Wandrille to appear before him on
4 November following, as he had found, when
recently holding a visitation of the diocese, that
the church of Ecclesfield had a large number of
parishioners, widely scattered, and that there was
no vicarage in the church, or any person charged
with cure of souls. The result was the ordina-
tion of a perpetual vicarage on 7 December,®
presentable by the abbot and convent, and on
the following 20 April, brother Robert de Bosco,
prior, was instituted to the vicarage.? He re-
signed in 1328,‘ when he was described as lately
‘rector seu custos, ac prior vulgariter nun-
cupatus.’ His successor John, dictus Fauvel,
monk O.S.B., was admitted ‘ad ecclesiam, seu
prioratum de Ekelisfelt,’ 4? and when he died in
1347, Archbishop Zouch admitted Robert
Gulielmus ‘ad ecclesiam, vicariam, custodiam,
seu prioratum, beate Marie de Eglesfeld.’ #

Richard II in 1385 ** gave to the Carthu-
sian monastery of St. Anne near Coventry
the advowson of the church of Ecclesfield in
Yorkshire, lately belonging to the Abbot and
convent of St. Wandrille in Normandy, then in
the king’s hands, by virtue of a recovery of the
same made in the court of the late King
Edward, grandfather of the king. The priory
of Ecclesfield seems to have had a shadowy exis-
tence. There was probably at no time a cell

% Jeremy of Ecclesfield, clerk, vicar of Ecclesfield,
granted his rights in the church with its chapels of
‘Seffeld, Bradefeld, and Witstan’ to the abbot, who
confirmed the perpetual vicarage to him for life.
Add. MS. 27581.

York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 1574.

* Ibid. Greenfield, fol. 79d.

% Ibid. fol. 854.

“ Ibid. fol. 514.

“ Tbid. Melton, fol. 1734.

* Tbid.

“ Dugdale, Mon. Angi. vi, 17, no. vii, quoting from
the Patent Roll.

388

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

there in the stricter meaning of the word, and
apparently the connexion with St. Wandrille was
severed in the time of Edward III.

Priors oF EcCLESFIELD

Peter de Sancto Romano, occurs 1287 *
Robert de Bosco, occurs 1308,** instituted
vicar also 1311," res. 1328 *
John de Fauvell, appointed 1328, died
1347 ©
Robert Gulielmus, appointed 1347 ™
John Burdet, occurs 1372

214. HOLY TRINITY PRIORY,
YORK

This priory was the successor of a pre-Con-
quest house of canons, which in 1089 was ‘almost
reduced to nothing,’ though it had been ‘ formerly
adorned with canons and rents of farms and
ecclesiastical ornaments.’ *? At what date this
house of canons was built is unknown but by the
year 1089 it was in the hands of Ralph Paynell,
who in that year re-established the house, as a
priory of Benedictines, subject to the abbey of
Marmoutier, near Tours.®4

In the foundation charter of the Benedictine
cell the invocation is given as the ‘ Holy Trinity ’®
but frequently it is referred to as ‘ Christ’s
Church,’ and in Domesday Book we find both
ascriptions.*” In post-Conquest days ‘Holy
Trinity’ was the name generally used, but as
late as 1175 *8 we find it referred to as ‘Christ’s
Church.’ The latter seems to have been the
original dedication, but eventually disappeared.

Ralph Paynell’s charter was practically a re-
foundation. Many of the churches and lands
which he conferred upon the Benedictine house
had formerly belonged to it asa house of canons.

There were fourteen churches, tithes from
seventeen places, lands in numerous parts of
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, a fishery at Drax,
and the tithes of other fisheries. This muni-
ficent beginning was increased in the following
centuries by numerous benefactors.

During its existence the priory acquired
several cells, the first of which was Allerton

“ York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 89d.

“8 Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 106.

* Ibid. Greenfield, fol. 514.

* Ibid. Melton, fol. 1754. ® Ibid.

® Ibid. Zouch, fol. 374. 5! Thid.

* Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 50 (he was not vicar of
Ecclesfield).

* Stapleton’s paper, Arch. Inst. Proc. York, 1846,
p. 18. * Yorks. Arch, and Topog. Journ. iv, 236.

> Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 682.

*° B.M. Cat. of Seals, i, 823.

* Stapleton’s paper, Arch. Inst. Proc. York, 1846,
p. {, and Bawdwen’s Domesday, 196.

*° Dodsworth MS. 7, fol. 198 (Bodl. Lib.).

See York Diocesan Mag. for 1903, p. 23.

® Stapleton’s paper, uf supra, 18, 19.

Mauleverer.t The connexion was of short
duration, however, for Allerton soon acquired its
independence, being subject only to Marmoutier
from about the year 1110. The second cell
was the priory of Hedley® founded c. 1125, and
the third was the priory of Tickford in the
county of Buckingham, which was placed under
Holy Trinity at the suppression of alien houses."
There was also a famous chantry chapel in York
under the priory and served by its monks—the
chapel of St. James’s on the Mount.

Being an alien house, Holy Trinity suffered
much during the various wars with France.
The monks were sometimes suspected as granting
asylum to French spies; they were charged
with sending supplies to the enemy ; and fre-
quent disturbances took place at the priory in
consequence of the unpopularity of the house
during these years of conflict between the two
countries. At such times the priory possessions
were seized into the hands of the king, and in
the Patent and Close Rolls there are numerous
references to royal appointments to the churches
belonging to Holy Trinity ‘on account of the
war with France.’

In 1402 Parliament asked the king to resume
into his hands all alien priories ‘except conven-
tual priories.’ “a The Prior of Holy Trinity at
that time, John Castell, satisfactorily showed that
his house was conventual,® and whilst in 1414
nearly all the aliens were suppressed, amongst
the number being Hedley and Allerton Mau-
leverer, Holy Trinity was spared ; ® and being
naturalized on their own petition in 1426,” the
house was thenceforward free from all connexion
with Marmoutier, itself having practically the
status of an abbey, and being frequently so
referred to.®

Some time during the reign of Henry VI
(1422-61) the priory received the grant of
another religious house, the hospital of St. Nich-
olas in the suburbs of York.®

Another hospital of the same dedication was
granted to the priory shortly afterwards—
19 May 1466—the hospital of St. Nicholas by
Scarborough.”

During the 15th century the priory had
become impoverished through the wars, the
calls formerly made on them from Marmoutier,
losses, misrule and misfortune, and in 1446 it

| Cal. Doc. France, 445.

* Tanner, Notit, Mon. quoting ‘MS. v. cl, Ricardi
Rawlinsoni.’ * Ibid. Bucks. xxvi.

* Cal. Pat. 1461-7, p. 375.

* Cott. MS. Cleop. F. iti, fol. 323-36.

Tbid. Pat. 4 Hen. VI, pt. ii, m. 8.

* See will of Joan Marshall, 22 Mar. 1427, in
York Reg.

* York Corp. House Bks. vi, fol. 3.
of St. Nicholas Hospital, above.

™ Pat. 6 Edw. IV, pt. ii, m. 20.

See account

389

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

was exempted from taxation, on the ground of
poverty, the church then being so ruinous as to
be unsafe for services.” In 1478 a petition was
made to the city council by the prior and con-
vent asking for their good offices with the Duke
of Gloucester (afterwards Richard III) on their
behalf. Their supplication was evidently listened
to, and their condition was much improved. The
temporalities of the priory were valued in 1292 at
£60 10s. $d. a year * together with pensions from
various churches amounting to £32 2s. 8d. ;78
in 1379 the total revenues were £189 16s.,”4 in
1536 the gross annual value was £196 175. 2d.,
the net being £169 9s. 10d.”

At the visitation of the monasteries the condi-
tion of the house was severely reported upon,
charges of sodomy, incontinence and superstition
being brought against the prior and his brethren.”®
The prior evidently took some part in the Pil-
grimage of Grace in 1536,” but with his ten
brother priests surrendered the house 11 Decem-
ber 1538,” receiving an annual pension of £22."
He lived till 1545, on g September of which
year he made his willand desired burial in the
“quere of Trinitie Churche Behynde the lectron.’
To two of his old fellow-monks, William Gryme
and Richard Stubbs, he left 6s. 8d. each, and the
same amount to ‘eury one of my Brethren if
they be lyvinge and come into the countrie.’

Priors oF Hory Trinity ®

Hermar, or Hicmar, c. 1112

Martin, before 1122

Robert, occurs 1130

Helias Paynell, resigned 1143

Philip, c. 1160-c. 1180

Robert, occurs 1200-10

William, occurs 1216, 1218

Stephen, appointed 1231, occurs 1237

Isembert, occurs 1242

Renulfe, appointed 1242

William, appointed 1248

Geoffrey, appointed 1249, occurs 1254

Roger Pepyn, occurs 1258-63

William Wenge, occurs 1263

Hamo, occurs 1265-73

Bartholomew, occurs 1268

Theobald, 1273 (?)

Geoffrey de Beaumont, occurs 1276, died
1281

Cal. Pat. 1446-52, p. 69.

72 Allen, Hist. of York Co. 159, quoting from Pope
Nicholas Taxation.

73 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 683.

4 Add. MS. (B.M.) 6164, fol. 388.

7 L. and P. Hen. VIII, xii (1), p. 536.

® Thoresby, Vicaria Leodiensis, 36.

1, and P. Hen. VILL, xiii (1), p. §75-

5 York Reg. of Wills.

| From Solloway, Alien Benedictines of York.

Simon de Reda, 1282 (?)
John de Insula, appointed 1283, occurs 1304
Oliver de Bages, occurs 1307-8
Geoffrey, occurs 1318-23
Hugh Aubyn, occurs 1327-31
John, occurs 1335, deposed 1340
Odo Friquet, appointed 1340, deposed 1341
Richard de Chichole, occurs 1345
John de Chosiaco, occurs 1356-63
Peter, occurs 1369
John de Castell, appointed 1383
[Walter Skirlaw, ‘ custos,’ 1388-go]
John de Coue, appointed 1390
John de Castell, a/ias Eschall, appointed 1399,
occurs 1434
John Grene, elected without licence 1440,"
removed 1441 8
Richard Bell, appointed 1441 *
John Burn, occurs 1449-54
William Pykton, occurs 1455
John Parke, appointed 1455
Thomas Darnton, occurs 1464-5
John Parke, occurs 1465-7
Thomas Darnton, occurs 1472-5
Robert Huby, intruded 1472 °°
Robert Hallowes, occurs 1478-1503
Richard Speight, a/ias Hudson, occurs 1531,
surrendered 1538
The 14th-century seal ad causas® is a vesica,
1% in. by 145 in. with our Lady crowned and
standing, holding the Child, between two figures
of saints, perhaps St. Peterand St. Paul. Above
the figures is the head of our Lord, and below
them the prior praying. The legend is :—

Sd SIGILLVM DOMVs SCE TINITATIS EBOR AD
CAVSAS DEPUTATUM

The 15th-century seal® is a vesica, 2 in.
by 1 in., with a representation of the Holy
Trinity between two suns. Below is a shield
charged with a cingfoil for Ralph Paynell, the
founder. The broken legend runs

SIGILLUM . . . RATUS SCE TRINITATIS EBORACI

Another seal*®* (? 15th century) is a vesica
with the Holy Trinity between the sun and
moon. Below is a dog () passant. Legend :—

4 SIGILLUM PRIORATUS SANCTE TRINITATIS IN
EBOR’

215. HEDLEY

The priory of Hedley was founded, according
to Dr. Burton, during the reign of Henry I,”

Cal. Pat. 1436-41, p. 503.

® Thid. 538. “Ybid. 524.

Early Chan. Proc. bdle. 47, no. 255 ; Cal. Pat.
1467-77, P- 355+

% Cat. of Seals, B.M. 4398, Ixxv, 41.

® Thid. 4399, lxxv, 42.

% Reproduced in Solloway, Alien Benedictines of
York, 112.

% Mon. Ebor. 56.

390

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

as a cell to Holy Trinity Priory, York. To
this latter house Niel Fossard, it appears, had
granted ‘a certain site in Bramham Wood, which
is called Hedley, and all the ground to the hill
at Oglethorp,’ *° but whether this gift was made
to the Benedictine house of Holy Trinity, or to
its predecessor the house of Canons,®’ is not
quite clear. At all events the donation was
afterwards referred to as the gift of Alexander
Paynell ® and Agnes * his wife.

On a portion of this land the Trinity monks
afterwards established a cell * which they dedi-
cated to the honour of St. Mary. Burton and
Tanner ® both date it ‘tempore Henry I,’ and
Dr. Rawlinson gives the exact year as 1125,
but in Alexander Paynell’s charter of c. 1125,%8
and in that of Henry II,” 1174-81, the priory
is not mentioned, but simply the site. In the
bull of Alexander III, however, of the date
1179, it is referred to as being in existence, the
pope then confirming to the priory at York its
*cellulam de Hedleia cum omnibus pertinentiis
suis,’ %8

The reputed founder of Hedley Priory was
Ypolitus de Bram, but from his charter it is
clear that he was not the founder, but that there
were already monks there, and that the cell
was then in existence under the dedication
‘St. Mary.’ His gift was simply an addition
to the Hedley possessions, and consisted of certain
lands of his at Middleton, near Ilkley.

Two of the witnesses of a gift made by
Adam Fitz Peter ‘to God and St. Mary of
Hedley ’ were Paulinus of Leeds and Robert de
Gaunt, and the benefaction must therefore have
been made during the period 1152-67.? Nothing
further seems to be known of Hedley till 1290,
when Peter de Middleton, a descendant of Adam
Fitz Peter, confirmed the gifts of his ancestors,
quitclaiming any supposed rights he might have
had, to ‘William the monk there,’ and to the
monks who should successively dwell there.’
Though it has been assumed that in 1290 there
was only one monk, the statement scarcely
warrants that assumption. It is more likely that
the monk William was the chief brother, the
prior, and that for that reason his name is men-
tioned as the one to whom the confirmation was
made. At all events there were monachi in

Stapleton’s paper, Arch. Inst. Proc. York, 1846,
p. 103. *! See under Holy Trinity Priory.

” The fourth son of the founder of Holy Trinity.

* Agnes Fossard, the granddaughter of Niel.

" Yorks. Arch. and Topog. Fourn. v, 316.

«MS. v. cl, Ric. Rawlinsoni.’

°° In the possession of the late Lord Herries.

*” Quoted in Cal. Pat. 1461-7, p. 377.

*® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 682.

°° Notit. Mon. Yorks. xlix.

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 686, quoting ‘ex ipso
autographo in Turri B. Mariae, Ebor.’

” Ibid. 3 Ibid. ® Ibid.

Ypolitus de Bram’s day, and an interesting itern
concerning St. Robert of Knaresborough shows
that there were a number of brethren in his
time. The Knaresborough hermit, it seems,
fled from that place to Spofforth, and thence to
Hedley, yielding to ‘ the invitation of the monks
of Hedley.’ But ‘being dissatisfied with their
conversation,’ he returned to his former retreat
at St. Hilda’s.4

Though, as we have seen, Hedley had received
certain possessions specifically intended for the
benefit of the cell, yet the priory at York still
owned the manor, and in 1377 it was leased for
thirty-nine years to John de Berden, citizen of
York, at an annual rent of 40s.,°and this amount
is recorded in an inspeximus of the Holy Trinity
finances made in 1379.° Before the termination
of this lease the alien priories were suppressed in
1414 by the Leicester Parliament, Hedley being
amongst the number of those mentioned in the
‘Catalogue.’” But the priory at York was
spared,® and the possessions of its suppressed cell
came into its hands.

None of the names of the priors have been
handed down unless it be William already men-
tioned as occurring in 1290.9

216. THE ALIEN PRIORY OF BEGAR
NEAR RICHMOND

‘The Abbey of Begare (sic) in Britanny having
several estates in England particularly in Lincoln-
shire and Yorkshire, there was a cell of alien
monks of that abbey fixed near Richmond,
temp. Henry III, which upon the suppression of
these foreign Houses was granted first to the
chantry of St. Ann at Thresk [Thirsk], then
to Eton College, then to the priory of Mount
Grace and at last to Eton College again.’ ”

There is really nothing to add to what Tanner
has noted regarding this alien priory, the history
of which seems to be quite lost, and Clarkson }
says that the site of this priory was nowhere
mentioned, but that at Moulton there were
some old buildings, called the Cell. The
property granted to Mount Grace, under the
name of ‘ Begger,’ was that of the mills at Rich-
mond. This is made evident by a conventual
lease,” granted by John, prior of the house of
the Assumption of the Blessed Mary the Virgin
of Mount Grace, to Cuthbert Pressyke on
6 October 1537, for his good and faithful
service, of an annuity of {10 ‘de Beggare alias
vocat” Richmond mylnes.’

“ Mem. of Fountains (Surt. Soc.), i, 167.

® Pat. 5 Ric. II, m. to.

® Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 684.

"Ibid. vi, 1652. * See under Holy Trinity.
° Dugdale, Mon. Angi. iv, 687.

" Ibid. vi, 1055.

) Hist. of Richmond, 32 n.

* Convent, Leases, Yorks. (P.R.O.), no. 521.

391

POLITICAL HISTORY

ITH the circumstantial evidence of the earliest occupations of the district afterwards
formed into the county of York we are not here concerned, nor yet with the less
obscure period of the Roman occupation.! Towards the end of the Roman
occupation this district must have suffered severely at the hands of the Picts and
Scots. To repel these invaders Stilicho, the great general of Honorius, in 402

sent troops into Britain, but eight years later the condition of affairs on the Continent compelled
the emperor to withdraw his forces from the island. Within forty years of the withdrawal of the
Romans the Picts appear to have overrun all Yorkshire and even to have raided south of the
Humber.

A doubtful tradition indicates that when Hengist and Horsa landed, about 450, in Kent
with their Jutish followers they came at the invitation of the British king, Vortigern, to repel the
Picts.2, This seems improbable, and the history of the northern counties is a blank until 547, when
Ida began to reign over Bernicia, between the Tees and the Cheviots, and, according to many
authorities, also over Deira, the present Yorkshire.? His capital was at Bamburgh, and on his
death in 559 his sons only retained Bernicia, Deira passing to Aélle.* When Alle died, in 588,
his son Edwin was only three years old, and Athelric son of Ida at once seized Deira and became
king of all Northumbria, which position he left in 593 to his son A®thelfrith ‘Flesaur’ (the
Devastator), who pushed the English dominion westwards, inflicting a crushing defeat on the
Britons at Chester in 613.° Four years later Edwin, with the assistance of Redwald the powerful
king of the East Anglians, defeated and killed A®thelfrith at Retford in Nottinghamshire, and
became King of Northumbria. Until this time the British kingdom of Elmet had remained
independent, but Edwin expelled its prince, Cerdic,® and united it to Deira, ruling his whole
kingdom with firmness and justice. An attempt to assassinate Edwin on behalf of Cwichelm of
Wessex, made in 626, while the king was at one of his palaces on the Derwent, possibly at
Auldby in the East Riding, nearly proved successful and had important results, as Edwin, with a
rather imperfect appreciation of Christian ethics, vowed to give his new-born daughter to God if he
might be revenged upon his enemies,’ and in the following year the king was himself baptized at
York. The growing power of Edwin alarmed Penda of Mercia, and drove him into an alliance
with Cadwallon, King of Gwynedd, who had suffered defeat at Edwin’s hands. In 633 the allies
advanced towards York, and on 12 October Edwin met them at Hatfield, 7 miles from
Doncaster. The resulting battle ended in the complete defeat of Edwin and his death. Northumbria
fell into the hands of Cadwallon, who occupied York, where Osric, as King of Deira, besieged him
but was defeated and killed. LEanfrith, son of A®thelfrith, of Bernicia was treacherously slain by
Cadwallon, but was speedily revenged by his brother, the pious Oswald, who held Northumbria until
his defeat and death at the hands of Penda in 642. Deira now broke off from Bernicia under
Oswine, grandson of Edwin, but in 651 Oswy of Bernicia, brother of Oswald, having married
Edwin’s daughter, claimed Deira. Oswine advanced against him to near Catterick, but then
dismissed his army, and with a single attendant entrusted himself to a thegn, who betrayed him to Oswy,
by whose orders he was murdered at Gilling.* Oswy was now sole King of Northumbria, though

For the evidences of these periods see V.C.H. Yorks. i, 357, and the volume on the Roman Remains
of the six northern counties of England.

* Petrie and Sharpe, Monum. Hist. Brit. (Rec. Com.), 62. Against any legendary settlement of the
northern counties by the sons or followers of Hengist may be set the fact that the settlers in this district
were Angles and not Jutes ; Bede, Hist. Eccl, (ed. Plummer), i, 31.

* This is accepted by Ramsay (Foundations of Engl. i, 129), but Plummer (Two Saxon Chrons. ii, 14, 15)
gives reasons for rejecting Ida as King of Deira.

‘The authority for the events related prior to the Norman Conquest, where other references are not
given, is the Angh-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), sub annis.

° For the date see Plummer, Tivo Saxon Chrons. ii, 19.

® Monum. Hist. Brit. (Rec. Com.), 76. ” Bede, Hist. Ecci. (ed. Plummer), i, 99.

* Bede, op. cit. 155 ; Ramsay, Foundations of England, i, 188, n. 2.

3 393 50

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

his nephew AEthelwald disputed the possession of Deira with him, and seems to have held at least
the position of under-king in the North Riding. Meanwhile the aged Penda ravaged Northumbria
as he pleased and scornfully refused to be bought off. At last Oswy was goaded into a desperate
effort and met the forces of Penda, AEthelwald, and AEthelhere, King of the East Angles, in a
pitched battle on the banks of the ‘ Winwoed’ near Leeds, probably at Win Moor in Barwick-in-
Elmet, on 15 November 655.!° Penda’s allies, Acthelwald and Cadwaladr of Gwynedd, proved
treacherous and withdrew from the fight, which ended in a crushing victory for Oswy, Penda and
thirty of his generals being left dead on the field.

For the next hundred years the history of Northumbria is little more than a catalogue of
successive rulers, few of whom were wise enough to resign or fortunate enough to die before they
were killed by their successors. Oswy died in 671, and Alchfrid his son, who had been acting as
under-king of Deira, seems to have rebelled and been deprived of his kingship prior to this date,"
Egfrith, another son of Oswy, now becoming King of Northumbria, and so remaining until his death
during an expedition against the Picts in 685, when his half-brother Aldfrid succeeded. That
king, a man of studious and literary tastes, died a natural death in 705 and was buried at Little
Driffield, but his son Osred was slain in 716 by Cenred and Osric. Cenred died two years later,
but Osric survived until 730, when he was slain; Ceolwulf, his successor, the patron of Bede,
reigned for seven years and then retired to the monastery of Lindisfarne, and his example was
followed by Edbert, his cousin and successor, in 758. His son Oswulf reigned but one year and
was then killed at Market Weighton ;'? Moll Athelwold was elected, but was expelled in 765
by Alchred, who was deposed in 774 in favour of Athelred, son of Athelwold, who in his turn was
banished in 779. The pious Atlfwold, son of Oswulf, was then elected, but upon his murder in
789 AEthelred returned ; during his reign, in 793, the Danes or Northmen made their first appearance
on the northern coast, ravaging Lindisfarne. /£thelred was slain in 795, and Osbald, who had
seized the throne, was expelled after holding office for twenty-seven days,’* Eardwulf being crowned
at York in May 796. Of him it is said that Aethelred had condemned him to death at Ripon in
790, but that during the performance of his funeral service in the monastery after his execution he
was discovered to be still alive, and was nursed back to health by the monks of Ripon.4 After
defeating at least one conspiracy against his throne he was driven out of the country by Atlfwold
about the end of 807, but was restored through the influence of Pope Leo III and the Emperor
Charles, whose daughter he is said to have married, and was succeeded in 810 by his son Eanred,
who in 827 submitted to Egbert, the first king of all England. .

For some fifteen years Yorkshire formed part of the West Saxon kingdom, but in 841, two
years after the death of Egbert, Northumbria regained its independence under A®thelred son
of Eanred.’® He was killed in 850 and was succeeded by Osbert. In 863 a rival to Osbert was
put forward in the person of Aélla, a thegn not of royal blood, and Gaimar records a tradition that
this was done by Beorn the Butsecarle in revenge for Osbert’s dishonouring his wife.” The
tradition goes so far as to make Beorn call in the aid of the Danes, and though it is unlikely that
they were invited it is certain that while Northumbria was torn by the rival factions of Osbert and
fElla the Danes, in 867, swarmed up out of East Anglia under Healfdene and Inguar, captured
York and ravaged the neighbourhood, filling the land with blood and slaughter. Osbert and
fElla, in face of the common danger, joined hands and marched at the head of a large army, in
March 868, to retake York ; but though the Northumbrians forced their way into the city they
were disastrously defeated, the two kings being slain and the army shattered.’ For the next few
years the Danes seem to have retained York itself, wintering there in 869, but to have left the rule
of Northumbria, and more particularly of Bernicia, in the hands of Saxons (Egbert, Ricsig, and
Egbert II) with the nominal rank of kings.’ By 876 Deira had so far submitted to the invaders
that Healfdene was able to portion the province out amongst his followers, and it is possible that
from this time we may date the formation of the three Ridings. A few years later, in 883, a
Danish Christian, Guthred or Cnut, son of Hardacnut, was elected King of Northumbria and made
York his capital, from which city he issued coins,” as did Sicfred, who was associated with him from
893 till the following year, when Guthred died and Alfred’s supremacy was acknowledged. On
the death of Alfred, in go1, his nephew AXthelwold tried to seize the throne of Wessex, but being
attacked by Edward the Elder, fled to the Northumbrians, by whom he was accepted as king.

® Ramsay, loc. cit. See Leadman, Battles Fought in Yorkshire, 3, 4.
" Bede, Ecc/. Hist. (ed. Plummer), ii, 198.

2? Plummer, Treo Saxon Chrons. ii, 48. 3 Ibid. 63.

“ Symeon of Durham, Hist. Regum (Rolls Ser.), ii, 52.

% Plummer, op. cit. 68. * Plummer, op. cit. 84.

Gaimar, Hist. des Engles (Rolls Ser.), ii, 84.
'S Symeon of Durham, Op. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), i, 54 3 ii, 74-5.
® Tbid. ” Yorks. Arch. Fourn. iv, 74.

394

POLITICAL HISTORY

ZEthelwold was killed in g05 by Edward; and in 918, shortly before her death, AEthelflaed, the heroic
‘lady of the Mercians,’ compelled the men of York to acknowledge her supremacy. Within a few
years, either in 919 or 923,” Ragnall, a Scandinavian chief, came over from Ireland and seized
York. He found it wise to do homage to Edward the Elder, in 924 ; and his brother, associate, and
successor, Sihtric, King of Dublin, the following year married a sister of Athelstan, but died shortly
afterwards, being succeeded by Guthfrith, whom Athelstan expelled in 927. Guthfrith made
attempts to recover York, but Athelstan retained the city and destroyed the Danish citadel. The
Scots proving troublesome, Athelstan advanced in 934 through Beverley and Ripon” and inflicted
a temporary check upon them; but in 937 his dominion in the north was threatened by a combina-
tion of the Scots, Strathclyde Welsh, and the Danes of Dublin. Athelstan seems to have assembled
his forces at York and to have marched thence to the crowning victory of ‘ Brunanburh,’ of which
the site is much disputed.22 Three years later Athelstan died and the Northumbrians shook off the
West Saxon yoke, making Anlaf of Ireland, son of Sihtric, their king. Edmund of Wessex did not
at once attempt to reconquer Northumbria, but contented himself with holding the northern
boundary of Mercia, which is described as running from Dore, near Sheffield, to Whitwell and
thence to the Humber, exactly on the lines of the southern boundary of the later Yorkshire.
Anplaf, however, in 943 pushed southwards, taking Tamworth, and met Edmund at Leicester,
where a treaty was made by which all England north of the Watling Street was to be held by
Anlaf. Next year Edmund, possibly taking advantage of a revolt of Anlaf’s subjects, seized
Northumbria and expelled Anlaf and Ragnall son of Guthfrith, who appears to have been King of
Bernicia. On the death of Edmund, Northumbria reasserted its independence, but Edred marched
across the border to Shelf, near Halifax, and compelled the Witan to swear fealty to him. Hardly
was his back turned when they broke their oath and set up Eric son of Harold Blue-tooth of
Denmark as king.* Accordingly next year, in 948, Edred harried Northumbria, burning Ripon
with its famous monastery ; as he was returning southwards the army from York overtook his
rearguard at Castleford, where the Roman road crosses the Aire, and slew a number of his men.
Turning back in a rage, he was only kept from devastating the country afresh by the complete
submission of the Northumbrians, who expelled Eric. In 949 Anlaf son of Sihtric recovered the
Northumbrian throne, only to be deposed in 952 in favour of Eric, who in his turn was expelled
and slain, according to one authority, on Stainmore,” on the borders of Yorkshire and Westmorland,
in 954, when the northern kingdom ceased and Northumbria was constituted an earldom, with its
seat at York.

For sixty years there is little to record, but in 1013 Swegen of Denmark, brother of that Eric
who had once reigned at York, appeared» with his fleet in the Humber and was at once accepted by
Earl Uhtred and all Northumbria. The rest of England followed suit ; but Swegen’s reign was
short, for next year he died at Gainsborough and was buried at York, whence his body was after-
wards removed to Denmark. Uhtred then adhered to the party of Ethelred and Edmund, but in
1016 was treacherously slain at Wighill near Tadcaster *® by Cnut, who gave his Yorkshire earldom
to Eric son of Hakon.

In 1055 Earl Siward, who the previous year had led an expedition into Scotland against
Macbeth, fell ill at York and, donning his armour for the last time, met death like a warrior 7’ and
was buried in the monastery of Galmanho which he had founded outside the city walls. His
earldom was at once given to Tostig, son of the powerful Earl Godwine, a step which proved of
tremendous national importance. Tostig was frequently absent from Northumbria, leaving the
. government to a deputy, Copsig,” and when in residence ruled with arbitrary harshness. The
discontent of his subjects was increased by a series of treacherous murders, Gamel son of Orm and
Ulf son of Dolfin being killed in the earl’s house at York and Gospatric murdered at the royal
court by Tostig’s procurement.” At last, on 3 October 1065, the men of Yorkshire and
Northumberland (which counties now appear for the first time under those names), led by
Gamelbearn, Dunstan, and Gloineorn, attacked and plundered Tostig’s palace at York, killing his
retainers.*° They then elected Morkere son of Earl Atlfgar as their earl, and under his leadership
marched southwards through Northampton as far as Oxford. King Edward endeavoured to support
Tostig’s claims, but Harold threw his influence on the side of Morkere, and Tostig was obliged to
go into exile. Mortification at the failure of his efforts on behalf of Tostig hastened the death of
King Edward, and when that event occurred, on 5 January 1066, and Harold was at once elected

41 See Plummer, Two Saxon Chrons. ii, 130-1. ™ Ibid. 138.
3 Ibid. 140-1. 4 Ibid. 147-8.
% Ramsay, Foundations of Engl. i, 300. *® Plummer, op. cit. 195.

*” Henry of Huntingdon, Hist. Angi. (Rolls Ser.), 195-6.

8 Symeon of Durham, Op. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), i, 97.

9 Ibid. ii, 178. % Tbid,
51 Lives of Edward the Confessor (Rolls Ser.), 422.

395

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

to the throne, Tostig resolved to be revenged upon his brother. He accordingly assembled a fleet
and, after raiding the south-eastern coast, entered the Humber with the intention of seizing
York, but was met and defeated by the Earls Edwin and Morkere; the seamen whom he had
pressed into his service at Sandwich deserted him, his ships as they were leaving the Humber
were attacked by Harold’s fleet, and he escaped with difficulty with a small remnant of his forces
to the hospitable court of Malcolm of Scotland. After a few months Tostig, with reinforcements
from Scotland and the Orkneys, set sail and, joining with the fleet of Harold Hardrada, king of
Norway, burnt Scarborough and once more entered the Humber. But now, instead of wasting
time in plundering the land on either side of the river, as they had done before, the invaders pushed
straight on up the Ouse to Riccall, 10 miles south of York. Here they left their ships and
marched against the city. Edwin and Morkere again assembled a force and gave battle at
Fulford, less than 2 miles from York, on 20 September. The fight was stubborn, but ended
in a decisive victory for the Norsemen, who entered York without further fighting, making terms
with the citizens and exchanging hostages. Meanwhile Harold, who had already since his accession
paid one visit to York, was hastening northwards with his army, and on Sunday, 24 September,
reached Tadcaster. For some reason, possibly by the terms of their agreement with the citizens,
or possibly because the castle still held out, Tostig and Hardrada made no attempt to hold York,
but, leaving a small force to guard their ships in the Ouse, moved northwards and camped at
Stamford Bridge on the Derwent, where they were taken unawares by Harold. Their forces
were lying on either side of the river, and those on the west bank had to be rapidly withdrawn.
The centre of the struggle was the narrow wooden bridge, which for a long time was held single-
handed by an heroic Norwegian, before whose battle-axe all assailants fell, until an Englishman,
getting into a boat, or as local tradition declares a pig-tub, floated under the bridge and speared
the hero through the gaping planks. This was the turning point of the battle, and the
English, rushing across the bridge and through the stream, cut their opponents to pieces, killing
both Tostig and Hardrada. A small remnant of the invaders fought their way back to their
comrades in charge of the ships at Riccall, and Harold, who had already lost more men and time
than he could afford in view of the threatened invasion from Normandy, gladly allowed the
survivors to return unharmed when they had released the hostages and sworn to bear arms against
him no more.* Harold returned to York with rich plunder to rest his victorious but depleted
forces, and was still there on 1 October when news reached him that William of Normandy,
profiting by his absence in the north, had landed unopposed on the Sussex coast. He instantly
returned at full speed to London and advanced with the troops from southern and central England
to defeat and death at Hastings. ‘To that defeat Earl Morkere and his brother Edwin contributed,
for although they had gladly accepted Harold’s aid to repel Tostig and his allies, they cared nothing
for the cause of Harold, and kept back the northern contingent, whose presence might well have
turned the scale against the Normans on the closely contested field of Hastings.

For a time Yorkshire, in common with the rest of England, accepted the change of rulers,
the northern magnates doing fealty to William and being confirmed by him in their titles and
possessions ; but during his absence in Normandy in 1067 disaffection began to spread, and early in
1068 the county, and especially the neighbourhood of York, assumed the aspect of an armed
camp. William advanced slowly northwards, strengthening his lines by building castles at
Warwick and Nottingham, and Earl Morkere and his brother at once made their peace with him.
Abandoned by their leaders and influenced by Archbishop Ealdred, the citizens of York hastened
to make their submission and surrender the keys of the city to the king, who at once established
a castle within the walls.** Early in 1069 a Norman force under Robert de Comines was annihi-
lated at Durham, and shortly afterwards a detachment of troops under Robert Fitz Richard,
Governor of York, was cut up, possibly while on their way to revenge the disaster at
Durham.* These two unfortunate incidents encouraged the English to further resistance, and
Edgar the A&theling left Scotland and marched with Cospatric, Merleswein, Archil, and other
English refugees, against York, raising the country to his aid.

William Malet, who was now in command at York, sent an urgent appeal for help to the
king, who hastened to the rescue, scattered the besiegers, and after spending a week in the city
planning the erection of a second castle, returned to the south, leaving William Fitz Osbern in
command. A fresh attack was easily repelled by Fitz Osbern, who seems then to have withdrawn,
appointing William Malet, Sheriff of Yorkshire, and Gilbert of Ghent as his successors. Mean-
while King Swegen of Denmark, urged by many of the northern English and spurred on by
ambition of re-establishing a Danish dynasty, had fitted out a cosmopolitan force of Danes,

* See Leadman, Battles fiught in Yorkshire, 5-13, and the authorities there quoted.
8 Orderic Vitalis, Hist. Eccl. bk. iv, ch. 4.

*Tbid. ch. 5. This is the main source of the account of the northern rising and the harrying of
Yorkshire.

396

POLITICAL HISTORY

English, Saxons, Poles, Frisians, and heathen Letts for the invasion of England, After a series of
feeble attempts to effect a landing on the south-east coast had been repelled with ease they entered
the Humber, where they joined hands with the Etheling, Waltheof Earl of Northampton, son of
the great Siward of Northumbria, Cospatric, and the other leaders of the previous unlucky expedition.
The allies now advanced on York, recruiting as they went; but the Norman commanders, secure
in the strength of their castles, sent word to King William that they could hold York for a year.
To make their position more secure they set fire to some outlying houses the possession of which
might have assisted their assailants; unfortunately the flames spread and destroyed the greater
part of the city, including the cathedral, in which Archbishop Ealdred, who had died of grief at the
prospect of renewed war, had just been buried.* The fire had hardly died down when, on
21 September, the invaders reached the city. The garrison, either despising the enemy or finding
their defences seriously weakened by the fire, sallied out to the attack, but were overwhelmed and
massacred, William Malet and his family, Gilbert of Gant, and a very few other survivors being
carried off as prisoners. The king was in Gloucestershire, but when the news of this disaster
reached him he started at once on a mission of vengeance. At the news of the Conqueror’s
advance the Danes lost heart and retreated to Lindsey. William detached a force to rout them
out of that district, while he himself ravaged Staffordshire and suppressed a rising there. “Then
resuming his march on York, where the enemy were once more concentrated, he was checked at
Pontefract by the swollen waters of the Aire, and it was not until Lisois de Moustiers succeeded in
finding a ford that the Normans were able to advance, and even then they had to proceed by
narrow byways instead of using the great main road through Tadcaster. The terror of William’s
name, however, prevented any resistance, and the Danes retreated to their ships, leaving the king to
enter his devastated city unopposed. William’s first care was to repair his castles, and then he set
about rendering further rebellion impossible. His recent experiences, coupled with what he must
have known of the past history of Northumbria, had shown him that there was little prospect of
reconciling Yorkshire, with its independent traditions, to his rule, and he therefore proceeded
systematically to exterminate the population. Under his personal leadership the Norman forces
marched through the forests, harrying the land, killing all who came in their way, guilty or inno-
cent, destroying the villages, and burning the crops and the implements of husbandry. Yorkshire
was left a wilderness, its blackened fields covered with dead bodies which there was none to bury.
Famine followed, and for the next few years the scanty survivors who failed to obtain relief at
Beverley, which almost alone escaped the devastation,** at York, risen phoenix-like from its ashes,*”
or outside the county,®® were driven to live on horses, dogs and cats, and even, it was rumoured,
to resort to cannibalism.** Meanwhile, William, having harried the East and North Ridings,
returned to York to keep Christmas in state, the regalia having been brought up from Winchester.*°
He then dislodged the wretched remnant of the Danes who were clinging to the shore, apparently
prevented by adverse winds from returning home, and in January set out to complete the ravaging
of the North. Returning to York the Conqueror prepared to carry out similar operations west-
wards as far as Chester; but some of his troops, wearied with these expeditions in bad weather
through difficult country yielding little plunder, proved mutinous. William, scornfully bidding
the faint-hearted go their way, called on the faithful to follow him, and, sharing their hardships,
completed his appalling policy of desolation by destroying the western district, and was at last able
to dismiss his army with thanks and rewards,*! knowing that no rising could occur north of the
Humber for many years to come.

Whether Morkere was still Earl of Yorkshire is not quite clear; he took no part in the
northern rebellion, but in 1071, when Hereward made his last stand against the Normans, Morkere
joined him in the Isle of Ely, and on the collapse of the English defence was committed to a
lifelong prison. William kept the county in his own hands, but granted the western half of the
North Riding to Alan le Roux of Britanny, practically as Earl of Richmond, while in the south-
east of the county Odo of Champagne was in the same way established as virtual Earl of Holder-
ness ” after Dru de Bevrere had forfeited his lands and fled the country for the murder of his wife.

* Symeon of Durham, Op. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 187. The fire is not mentioned by Orderic.

%° Hist. of Cb. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 350.

* The hospital of St. Peter is said to have been enlarged to accommodate the sick and poor lying
houseless in the streets ; Assize R. 1045, m. 17d.

°° Chron. de Evesham (Rolls Ser.), go.

%° Symeon of Durham, Op. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 188.

° Orderic, loc. cit. "| Tbid.

“ Orderic Vitalis, Hist. Eccl. bk. iv, ch. 7. Strictly speaking, Alan owed his comital title to his relation-
ship to the Count of Britanny, the shire of Richmond only becoming an earldom under Alan F ergant about
1144.3; and although Orderic says that the comitatus of Holderness was given to Count Odo, neither he nor
his successors, Earls of Albemarle and lords of Holderness, used the title of Earl of Holderness.

397

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

At the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086 Yorkshire and its appendent provinces stretched
across England from the North Sea to the Atlantic, including the western districts of Amounderness,
Furness, and Cartmel, which afterwards were joined to the land between Ribbleand Mersey to form
Lancashire. In Yorkshire proper, besides Count Alan, the greatest landowners were William Percy,
who held a hundred manors ; Robert, son of William Malet, the unlucky sheriff who had been captured
at York in 1068 and had fallen in an expedition against Hereward shortly afterwards ; Gilbert of
Gant, Malet’s companion in captivity ; Ilbert de Lacy of Pontefract ; Roger de Builly of Tickhill ;
Dru de Bevrere of Holderness ; and William de Warenne of Conisbrough.*? On the death of the
Conqueror the Yorkshire magnates did Rufus good service ; but in 1095 Odo of Champagne joined
in the rebellion of Robert Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, and when Mowbray, escaping from
Bamburgh, was captured in ‘the minster of St. Oswin’—probably at Gilling near Richmond—
Odo was committed to prison.*® At the accession of Henry I, Robert Malet and Robert son of
Ilbert de Lacy of Pontefract took the part of Robert of Normandy and lost their Yorkshire
estates.“ The chief leader of Duke Robert’s faction in England was Robert of Belléme, who had
obtained from Rufus the honour of Tickhill, formerly held by Roger de Builly, and had there
built a castle, which he put in a state of defence early in 1102. King Henry proceeded in person
against the more important stronghold of Bridgenorth, and entrusted the reduction of Tickhill to
Robert Bloett, Bishop of Lincoln.

With the exception of a royal visit in 1122, when Henry I kept Christmas at York, there
is little to be recorded regarding Yorkshire until Stephen seized the throne in 1135. Early in the
following year King David of Scotland took up arms on behalf of the Empress Maud and crossed
the border. Stephen at once advanced to Durham and made a treaty by which David’s son Henry
was recognized as Earl of Huntingdon and also received Carlisle and Doncaster, for all of which he
did homage to Stephen at York. The peace was of short duration, for early in 1138 the Scots
began a series of raids, and at last, in the summer of that year, King David collected a large army
and advanced in the direction of York, intending to secure his lines of communication by holding
the castles of Malton and Knaresborough,” belonging to Eustace Fitz John, who was acting with
him in revenge for having been deprived of Bamburgh by Stephen. Archbishop Thurstan at
once took measures to meet the invasion. Not only did he summon all the great barons of the
county, but he also ordered the parish clergy to come in person at the head of their parish
contingents. A strong force quickly assembled for the defence of York. The leadership was
entrusted to William, Count of Aumiale, lord of Holderness; with him were Walter of Ghent,
an old man of wise counsel, at the head of a body of Flemish and Norman troops; Walter Espec,
burly and black-bearded, past the prime of life, but possessing wit and courage commensurate with
his stature ; Robert de Brus and his son Adam ; William Percy ; William Fossard ; Ilbert de Lacy ;
and Robert de Stuteville. Young Roger Mowbray, still quite a boy, was brought into the field
at the head of his many tenants, William Peverel and Robert de Ferrers came from Nottingham-
shire and Derbyshire, and King Stephen sent Bernard de Balliol with such soldiers as he could
spare. In addition to these great barons with their mail-clad men-at-arms were the local levies,
led by their clergy carrying relics. The whole force moved northwards as far as Thirsk, bearing
with them their standard, a great mast, set in a low car, its top crowned with a silver pyx and
floating from it the banners of St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon.®
From Thirsk Brus and Balliol were sent to the Scottish king to try to arrange for peace. As he
refused to accept the terms offered, the envoys renounced the allegiance which they owed him
for lands in his dominions and returned to their army. An advance was at once made to North-
allerton, a little to the north-west of which town, on Cowton Moor, the standard was planted and
the troops drawn up round it early in the morning on Tuesday, 22 August. The aged archbishop,
unable to bear the journey, had sent as his substitute the Bishop of Orkney, who made a short
speech of encouragement to the troops and with uplifted hands gave them absolution and bene-
diction ; Walter Espec and William of Auméle clasping hands swore to conquer or die, and the
whole host took up their positions with the same determination. Being smaller in numbers than

® See article on ‘ The Domesday Survey.’

6 Orderic Vitalis, Hist. Ecc/. bk. xi, ch. 1, * Ibid. bk. x, ch. 7.

* Tbid. bk. xi, ch. 3 ; Florence of Worc. Chron, (Engl. Hist. Soc.), ii, 50.

Orderic, op. cit. bk. xii, ch, 32. * Symeon of Durham, Op. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 287.

51 Ramsay, Foundations of Engi. ii, 367.

5? Symeon of Durham, Op. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 292.

® During the mediaeval period there is frequent mention of these banners, and of that of St. Cuthbert of
Durham, accompanying the king’s army against the Scots and on other expeditions. The abbot of St. Mary’s,
ie also bound to find one man to carry the banner of the abbey in the same way ; Ca/. Pat. 1258-66,
p- 636.

398

POLITICAL HISTORY

their opponents the English drew up in one solid phalanx, using the famous tactics of the shield
wall, the men-at-arms, dismounted, standing shoulder to shoulder, shield to shield. Behind this
living wall were the archers and pikemen, and in the centre the standard with its bodyguard.
The Scottish king wisely wished to oppose like to like and to form his front lines of men-at-arms
and archers, but the kilted men of Galloway insisted upon having the place of honour in the van.
The battle, therefore, was begun by the men of Galloway, who gave three warlike howls, and
raising their war-cry of ‘ Albany,’ charged fiercely upon their opponents. The outer lines of
skirmishers gave way, but the men-at-arms stood firm, and the Scots, with their feeble spears,
flung themselves uselessly against the iron wall. Then the English archers opened fire with deadly
effect. Unprotected by armour the men of Galloway fell in numbers, and when their two
leaders were slain they broke and fled. The English host now advanced to the attack. The
Scottish second line, composed of Norman and English men-at-arms, had been led by the gallant
Prince Henry against one wing of the Yorkshire force and had driven them back, so that the
English attack fell on the third line, composed of the men of Lothian, who gave way at once.
King David wished to lead his bodyguard and reserves against the enemy, but was forcibly
prevented and carried off by his knights, and the whole Scottish host fled, Prince Henry, with his
too successful men-at-arms, making his way round to Carlisle.“4 ‘The savage Scots had been
practically annihilated, the scattered survivors of the battle being slain by the men of the north
country, who had not forgotten the cruelty of their raids. King David and his barons had been
routed, and the victorious host returned to York laden with booty and there disbanded, except for
a detachment which besieged Eustace Fitz John’s castle of Malton and compelled the garrison to
surrender.®> As a reward for their conduct in this battle Stephen created William of Aumdale Earl
of Yorkshire and Robert de Ferrers Earl of Derbyshire.

In 1142 Stephen and his queen visited York after Easter and put a stop to a proposed tourna-
ment, which would have been practically a duel, between Earl William and Earl Alan of Richmond,”
who a little earlier had built a castle at Hutton to overawe and plunder the district round Ripon.*®
Another obnoxious private fortress erected at Wheldrake to command the Ouse was destroyed by
the citizens of York by leave of Stephen in 1149, when he came to the city to watch the move-
ments of young Henry of Anjou and his ally the King of Scotland. The county must have been
full of these private strongholds ; many of these adulterine or unlicensed castles were destroyed by
Stephen in accordance with the terms of the treaty made with Henry of Anjou in 1153, and almost
the last recorded act of his reign was the capture and destruction of the castle of Drax, on the Ouse,
which its builder, Philip de Colville, had refused to dismantle. Henry II on his accession
continued the work of disarming the barons, and early in 1155 advanced to York with an armed
force sufficient to overawe the great Earl of Yorkshire, who reluctantly gave up the crown demesnes
in the county which he had wrested from Stephen and also his chief castle of Scarborough.*
Standing on a precipitous bluff projecting into the sea and only accessible from the land by a narrow
neck, across which Earl William had built a great keep, Scarborough Castle commanded the only
harbour of importance in that district and was too important to be left in the hands of any subject
of doubtful fidelity, and when it fell into decay the king expended large sums upon its repair.”

In the summer of 1157 King Malcolm of Scotland visited the county, not this time at the
head of an invading army, but as the guest of the English king, to whom he did homage at Chester.®
Early next year Henry went north to meet Malcolm at Carlisle and visited York and possibly
Doncaster ; “ five years later, in 1163, he seems to have paid another visit to the city,® but the chief
event in the county history of this reign was the suppression of the rebellion of 1173-4. Asa
whole Yorkshire remained faithful to King Henry, but Roger Mowbray declared for the young king and
joined King William of Scotland in his attacks on the northern castles. Geoffrey, the Bishop-elect
of Lincoln, bastard son of King Henry, at once attacked Mowbray’s castles and carried Axholme
and Kirkby Malzeard with little difficulty and fortified Topcliffe in the royalist interest,® but Thirsk

of the battle of the Standard see Leadman, Battles fought in Yorkshire, 14-25, and the authorities
there cited.

55 Chron. Stephen, Hen. II and Ric. I (Rolls Ser.), ii, 165.

Ibid. Earl Ferrers died next year, as did also Walter of Ghent ; ibid. 178.

’ Symeon of Durham, Of. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 312.

58 Tbid. 306. °° Raine, York, 58.

® Chron. Stephen, Sc. (Rolls Ser.) i, 94. 5! Ibid. 104.

® Between 1159 and 1161 £330 (something like £10,000 of modern money) were spent on the castle
and keep ; Pipe R. 5-7 Hen. II.

® £123 was paid by the Sheriff of Yorkshire for the maintenance of the King of Scotland during sixteen
days ; Pipe R. 3 Hen. II. “ Eyton, Court of Hen. II, 33.

% Ibid. 62. * Roger Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 58.

"In 1175 several fines were levied upon Yorkshiremen ‘qui abierunt ad Tresck’ ; Pipe R. 21 Hen. II.

399

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

still held out, and Mowbray urged King William to come to its relief.°° The king, however, hearing
that Yorkshire was in arms against him, declined to advance, and turned his attention to Alnwick.
The Yorkshire barons, under Ranulph de Glanville and Bernard de Balliol, did not wait to be
attacked, but joining forces with the loyalists of the northern counties, hastened to Alnwick,
surprised and captured the Scottish king, and brought him a prisoner to Richmond.” The final act
of the rebellion was played at York on 10 August 1175,’° when the King of Scotland did homage
to the King of England and placed his helmet, spear, and saddle upon the high altar of the minster
in token of his submission.1 Mowbray’s castles of Thirsk and Malzeard were dismantled, and
orders were given for the destruction of the Bishop of Durham’s fortress at Northallerton,” the
property of all Flemings resident in the county was seized, fines were inflicted upon those who had
assisted the rebels,”* and the county settled down to its normal life again.

The reign of Richard I opened with a dramatic tragedy. York, as one of the great towns of
England, had become the centre of a wealthy Jewish colony, the heads of which were at this time
Benedict and Joce. These two men were in London at the time of King Richard’s coronation
when a riot broke out which ended in the slaughter of most of the Jews and the plunder of their
houses. Benedict was wounded to death and forcibly baptized, but Joce escaped to York. The
report of the London massacres, coupled with the crusading enthusiasm of the time, so worked upon
the populace at York that certain men of position who were deeply indebted to the Jews found
little difficulty in provoking anti-Jewish outrages. First the house of the murdered Benedict was
broken into and robbed, and his widow and children slain. In alarm the Jews obtained leave from
the constable of the castle to store their treasure in part of the castle, probably the isolated tower
called Clifford’s tower. Shortly afterwards the mob besieged Joce’s house, a massive stone building,
which resisted their efforts for some little time. Joce had wisely moved into the castle with his
wife and children and most of his goods, and his example was followed by most of the other Jews.
In their fear of treachery the Jews rashly refused to admit the constable of the castle, and he at
once persuaded the sheriff, John Marshall, to order the capture of the castle. The people responded
gladly to the call to arms, urged on by a Premonstratensian canon and a gang of anti-Semitic
debtors, of whom the leader was Richard Malebiche, ‘rightly called Evil Beast,’ and although the
sheriff and some of the more responsible citizens tried to restrain them, they pressed the attack so
hotly that the besieged saw no hope of escape. Joce and Rabbi Yomtob of Joigny, who was on a
visit to York, addressed their followers, urging them to die by their own hands rather than at the
hands of the enemy ; most of the Jews agreed and perished by mutual slaughter, first setting fire to
their goods ; a few, whose courage failed them, surrendered and vowed to accept Christianity, but
were at once butchered by the mob. Altogether about 150 men, women, and children perished on
17 March 1190, and very few Jews were left alive in the city. Malebiche and his confederate
debtors next turned to the minster and rushed the treasury, broke open the chests in which were
kept their bonds of indebtedness, and burned them. The king was furious, and sent his chancellor
with an army to York early in May, but Malebiche and the other leaders had retired to Scotland.
So many citizens were involved that it was dificult to make an example of any. Beyond removing
the sheriff from office and inflicting fines to the extent of some £230 on the more prominent rioters,
nothing was done.’4

During the absence of King Richard, Yorkshire played a considerable part in the struggle
between the loyal party and the faction of John, Count of Mortain, the king’s brother. At
Tickhill towards the close of 1190 Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, John’s firm supporter, was
entrapped by his rival Longchamp, the astute chancellor, and compelled to surrender his castles.”
Tickhill itself was entrusted by the chancellor to Roger de Lacy, by whom Eudes de Dayvill was
put in charge. Next year Eudes, with the cognizance of Peter de Bovencurt, betrayed the castle to
John ;7® but peace being soon afterwards patched up, John handed Tickhill over to William de
Wenneval to hold for the king.” A little later Longchamp ordered Hugh Bardolf to surrender
the castle of Scarborough and the sheriffdom of Yorkshire to William de Stuteville, but his orders were
not obeyed.” Early in 1193, while Richard was a prisoner in Germany, John attempted to seize
the throne. Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, with Hugh Bardolf and William de Stuteville put
Doncaster in a state of defence,’ but the archbishop could not persuade his colleagues to attack

°° Chron. Stephen, &Sc. (Rolls Ser.), i, 182.
® Ibid. Bowes castle was strengthened ‘against the coming of the King of Scotland’ ; Pipe R. 20 Hen. II.

™ Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, ror. Pipe R. 21 Hen. II.

“ Chron. Stephen, @3c. (Rolls Ser.) i, 312-24 3 Jacobs, Fews of Angevin England, 117-33, 140, 154,
385-92. ® Chron. Stephen, Sc. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 390.

*® Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ili, 134, 172. 7 Ibid. 144. Ibid. 154.

“Ibid. 206. Twenty-six knights, fifteen serjeants-at-arms, and 140 infantry were placed in Doncaster
Castle; Pipe R. 5 Ric. I.

400

POLITICAL HISTORY

John’s castle of Tickhill; it was, however, invested by the Bishop of Durham, now acting on
‘King Richard’s side, and he abandoned the siege with reluctance when a truce was proclaimed in
April. In February 1194 the bishop resumed the siege, but it was not until the garrison were
assured of the presence of the king in England that Robert de la Mare, the constable, agreed to
surrender.*!_ The king went on to York, where the citizens found it politic to make a gift of
200 marks ‘to show their joy at the return of the king from Germany.’® Richard at this
time deprived Hugh Bardolf of the office of sheriff and of the castles of York and Scarborough,
afterwards selling the sheriffdom to his half-brother, Archbishop Geoffrey, for 3,000 marks.
At the same time Sir Richard Malebiche paid 300 marks for pardon for his share in John’s
rebellion and to recover the estates which he had forfeited in connexion with the massacre
of the Jews.®
During the reign of John scarcely a year passed in which that restless king did not pay a visit
to Yorkshire.** In January 1201 he came to Cottingham, where he stayed the night with
William de Stuteville, and next day went on to Beverley; he and Queen Isabel then visited
Scarborough on their way to Durham, and returning south visited York at Mid-Lent (March 4).*
At York, where Archbishop Geoffrey made his peace with the king, the reception of the royal party
was not cordial, and the citizens were fined £100 because they did not come to meet the king on
his arrival and did not provide lodgings for his archers.’ At the end of March 1210 King John
met the heads of the Cistercian abbeys at York and demanded from them a subsidy, which they
refused to grant.’ He returned to the city at the end of the same year in order to keep Christmas
there. The barons of Yorkshire—Percy, Brus, Stuteville, Mowbray, and Roos—played a
prominent part in the struggle with the king,” and although Earl William of Aumdale was one of
the last great nobles to desert John’s cause he was one of the twenty-five barons who swore to the
observance of Magna Carta.** To ensure the observance of the charter four castles were to be put
at the disposal of the barons, and of these one was Scarborough,” which John some three months
before had put into the hands of Geoffrey de Nevill and strengthened witha force of sixty serjeants and
ten crossbowmen.* At the same time the castle of Richmond was restored to Roald son of Alan,
instead of being destroyed as the king had previously ordered. On the first day of January 1216
John entered Yorkshire * at the head of an army and passed through Doncaster and Pontefract to
York, Thirsk, whose inhabitants paid 80 marks to save their town from being burnt, and Allerton,
and so into Durham, returning on 31 January to Guisborough, where he spent a week, then
moving out to Skelton. On 12 February he went down to Scarborough, where Earl William of
Aumale was probably in command,” and three days later to York. His expedition had been
completely successful; of the Yorkshire castles Helmsley almost alone withstood him ;°* the others
he either took into his own hands or, as in the case of Malton,” destroyed ; the citizens of York
and the men of Beverley had alike to pay £1,000,’ Roald son of Alan ransomed his men who
had been taken in the castle of Richmond by payment of 200 marks and six suits of armour,} and
other Yorkshire landowners were mulcted in various sums. The county was left under the control
of Robert de Vipont, Brian de Lisle, and Geoffrey de Lucy,” but soon after Louis landed in England
Robert de Roos, Peter de Brus, and Richard Percy recovered the greater part of Yorkshire in the
baronial interest,? and in June King John wrote to the Earl of Chester that if he considered that
Richmond Castle could not be held it should be destroyed.*
On the death of John, Yorkshire went over solidly to the cause of Henry III, and although
Earl William of Aumale, Robert de Vipont, and Brian de Lisle endeavoured to continue the policy
of plundering which they had pursued under the late king, they were soon reduced to order.5
In June 1220 King Henry came to York to meet King Alexander II of Scotland, who awaited

* Hoveden, op. cit. ili, 208. *! Thid. 238-9.
® Pipe R. 6 Ric. I. ® Hoveden, op. cit. ili, 241.
* Pipe R. 6 Ric. I.

* Itinerary, printed in Ror. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com.), vol. i.

; *° Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), iv, 156-7.

7 Pipe R. 3 John. *° Chron. Stephen €c. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 510.

* Matt. Paris, Céron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 531.

% Ibid. 585. " Ibid. 604.

* Ibid. 603. * Rot. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com.), i, 131.

* Ibid. 143. : * See the Itinerary.

Rot. de Oblatis et Fin. (Rec. Com.), 569. * Rot. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com.), i, 152.

* Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 642. ® Pipe R. 17 John.

1 Rot. de Oblatis et Fin, (Rec. Com.), 574.

Ibid. 569; Rot. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com.), i, 163. > Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 641
® Ibid. 663. * Rot. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com,), i, 186. Baan

5 Matt. Paris, op. cit. iil, 33. Earl William made another attempt at rebellion in the winter of 1220-1
but was soon compelled to give in ; ibid. 60 ; Royal Letters Hen. III (Rolls Ser.), i, 171, :

3 401 51

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

him at Thirsk and Easingwold, not wishing to enter the city until the English king had arrived.*
As a result of this visit the two kings met again next year at York, where, on 18 June, Alexander
married Henry’s sister Joan, while at the same time Alexander’s sister Margaret was married to
Hubert de Burgh.’ Henry made a progress through the county at the end of 1227 and kept
Christmas at York, as he did again in 1229, on which occasion the Scottish king joined him.®
Yorkshire was visited by King Henry in 1236, 1237,and 1244,” and at Christmas 1251 he brought
his daughter Margaret to York to marry the young Alexander III. The ceremony was performed
with the greatest magnificence, and the city was filled with the nobles of the two courts and their
retainers, but the festivities were slightly marred by a quarrel between the Scottish and the English
servants. The marriage also, which had been celebrated with such splendour, proved unpopular
with the Scottish nobility, who kept Queen Margaret away from her young husband and treated
her with much indignity, until in the autumn of 1255 King Henry passed once more through
Yorkshire at the head of an army on his way to the borders to enforce the proper treatment of his
daughter."

The Barons’ War did not affect the county to any great extent; the royalist influence was
predominant, Richmond Castle belonged to Peter of Savoy and was successfully retained by his
steward Wischard de Charron, York was held for the king by Robert de Nevill,’? and John de
Oketon refused to surrender Scarborough, though this was one of the five great castles which the
barons demanded upon the escape of Prince Edward.!® But although Yorkshire was not desolated
by civil war it suffered severely from the weakness of the central government during the last years
of Henry’s reign, and when Edward I caused a searching inquiry to be made into the conduct of
the magnates and their officials in 1275 a terrible state of affairs was revealed. ‘The bailiff of the
Earl of Lincoln had done ‘ many acts of oppression, plunder, extortion, and injury, beyond belief’; "™
the gaoler of York, to please a man accused of murder, had arrested his accuser as a thief and kept
him in prison, bound naked to a post, without food, until he paid 40s. to Henry de Normanton the
sub-sheriff,'® of whom ‘many other things beyond number and astonishing’ were related.'® The
steward of the Earl of Warenne also was guilty of ‘devilish and innumerable acts of oppression,’ '”
and ‘many most evil reports’ were made of Gilbert de Clifton, bailiff of Staincliffe, who ‘ with vile
words insulted William de Chaterton, the justice appointed to hold this inquiry, and threatened
him because he told the jurors not to fail to tell the truth about the bailiffs of the Earl of Lincoln
for fear; and Gilbert said to him that if he had been present when he gave these orders he would
have dragged him out by the feet.’ 8

Edward I visited the county for the first time in 1280, and again in January 1284, when he
and Queen Eleanor were present at the translation of the body of St. William.’? From 1291 to
1306 hardly a year passed in which the king did not make a progress through Yorkshire,” usually
on his way to or from Scotland, and from 1298*! to 1304 the courts of King’s Bench and
Exchequer sat at York instead of at London. With York the virtual capital of northern England,
and at least the military centre for the Scottish campaigns, it was advisable to improve the com-
munications by sea. For at least a century there had been a port of some size at the place where
the Hull entered the Humber, and in 1294 King Edward bought the adjacent vills of Wyke and
Myton from the abbey of Meaux and founded a town which he called Kingston-upon-Hull,”
constituting it a free borough in 1299.°%* On the same day on which he gave this charter to
Kingston he granted a similar charter to Ravenser-Odd,” the old port of Ravenspur at
the mouth of the Humber, which rivalled Kingston until destroyed by inroads of the sea about the
middle of the 14th century.”®

Space will not allow of any account of the various levies of troops made within the county for
the Scottish wars, but the beginnings of parliamentary representation must not be ignored.” To the

§ Reval Letters Hen. III (Rolls Ser.), i, 131-2.

7 Matt. Paris, op. cit. i, 66; Arch. Fourn. xv, 103-4.

§ Matt. Paris, op. cit. ili, 193.

* «Visits of Henry II] to the Northern Counties,’ Arch. Fourn. xv, 99-118.
” Ibid. ; Matt. Paris, op. cit. v, 266-270.

Udrch. Fourn. xv, 112-13. ™ Cal. Pat. 1258-66, p. 333.

3S Ibid. 414. ™ Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 112.

* [bid. 111. 8 Tbid 109.

Tbid. ® Ibid. 111.

8 Hist. CA. of York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 408.

” See Gough, Itinerary of Edw. I. ” Flores Hist. (Rolls Ser. 95), iii, 104.

7 Rishanger, C4ron. (Rolls Ser.), 223.

3 Cron. Mon. de Melsa (Rolls Ser.), ii, 186 ; Cal Chart. R. 1257-1300, p. 455.
™ Cal. Chart. R. 1257-1300, p. 475. * Thid. 476.

* Chron. Mon. de Melsa (Rolls Ser.), iii, 16, 21 5 Cal. Pat. 1343-5, p. 85.

* See Return of Members of Parliament, sub annis.

402

POLITICAL HISTORY

Parliament of 1295, besides the city of York, the boroughs of Beverley, Hedon, Malton, Pickering,
Pontefract, Ripon, Scarborough, Thirsk, Tickhill, and Yarm each sent two members. To that held
at York in May 1298 Beverley, Malton, Northallerton, Pontefract, and Scarborough sent members.
The returns for 1300 are defaced, but show Beverley, Ripon, Scarborough, and Boroughbridge,
and apparently Knaresborough, Pontefract, and Ravenser ; for 1302 no boroughs, and not even
York itself, appear, but in 1305 Beverley, Kingston, Ravenser, and Scarborough were represented ;
next year only Scarborough, which appears in 1307 with Beverley and Ripon, Ripon dropping
out in 1309 and Beverley in 1311. From 1313 to the time of Elizabeth the only Yorkshire
towns represented were the city and the boroughs of Scarborough and Kingston, save that Ravenser
makes an occasional appearance in the earlier years and that in 1329 Beverley, Richmond, and
Ripon were summoned. The number of parliamentary boroughs in this great county is certainly
curiously small, especially when compared with Sussex, Cornwall, and Devon, each with six, and
Wiltshire with thirteen.

The accession of Edward II inaugurated a period of disorder and disaster, of which Yorkshire
bore more than its share. It was at York, at Christmas 1311, that the detested Gascon favourite,
Piers Gaveston, returning from banishment, rejoined the infatuated king.** The barons at once
began to devise measures for his expulsion, and Edward determined to secure the important
stronghold of Scarborough before it was too late. His orders to Henry Percy to hand over the
castle were at first ignored, but upon their repetition in February 1312 Percy reluctantly obeyed.”
Early in April, Edward, who was still at York, evidently considered an attack imminent, and
he would seem to have sent his beloved Gaveston for safety to Scarborough, as on 4 April
Gaveston received the custody of that castle with instructions not to surrender it to anyone
except the king himself, and in the event of the king being brought thither as a prisoner he was
not to give it up.*? Two days later the king left York and moved up to Newcastle.*! Meanwhile
the barons exercised a wise secrecy in their movements,” and, lulled by their apparent inaction,
Gaveston left the security of Scarborough and joined Edward at Newcastle. Suddenly, on
Ascension Day, 4 May, news came that the Earl of Lancaster was advancing against the town ;
Edward and his favourite fled at once to Tynemouth, followed shortly afterwards by the court
officials,*? and in the afternoon of the same day the earl, with Sir Henry Percy, Sir Robert Clifford,
and their followers, occupied Newcastle without resistance and seized the king’s treasure, arms, and
horses stored there.** Next day the king and Gaveston set sail from Tynemouth and reached
Scarborough, where Gaveston took up his quarters, while Edward went on first to Knaresborough
and then to York.** The siege of Scarborough was now undertaken by John de Warenne, Earl
of Surrey, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and Sir Henry Percy, who disregarded the king’s
orders to raise the siege.** After some three weeks Gaveston met the earls in the church of the
Dominican priory * and agreed to surrender on condition that they should arrange a conciliation
between him and his enemies, and that if they failed to do so they should replace him in the
castle in exactly the same state as at the time of his surrender.*® On these terms he trusted
himself to the Earl of Pembroke, by whom he was taken to Deddington, in Oxfordshire, where
during the earl’s absence he was seized by the Earl of Warwick, carried off to Warwick,
condemned to death by the Earls of Lancaster, Hereford, and Arundel, and executed.*® King
Edward was furious, but beyond ordering John Mowbray, warden of York, to arrest Sir Henry
Percy, who had pledged his oath for Gaveston’s safety at the time of his surrender, he could at
this time take no measures of vengeance.

; The next fifteen years constituted one of the most disastrous periods in the history of northern
‘England. After the disgrace of Bannockburn in 1314 King Edward returned to York and
summoned a Parliament to treat of peace with Scotland.** Then came two years of dearth and
famine,” aggravated by plundering raids of the Scots, who in 1316 ravaged Richmondshire.
In 1317 Pope John XXII sent two cardinals to England, and while they were on their way
to Durham with Louis de Beaumont, Bishop-elect of Durham, and others, the whole party were
seized and carried off to Mitford Castle in Northumberland by Gilbert Middleton, warden of
the Scottish marches, who was in league with the Scots. The bishop and his brother were
detained, but the two cardinals, deprived of their horses and other property, were allowed to proceed

* Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls Ser.), i, 202.
® Cal. Pat. 1307-13, p. 429 ; Cal. Close, 1307-13, p. 401.

Cal. Pat. 1307-13, p. 454. 9 Ibid. 457.

™ Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls Ser.) ii, 176. ® Cal. Close, 1307-13, p. 459-

* Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls Ser.), ii, 176. % Ibid.

® Cal. Close, 1307-13, p. 460. *” Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls Ser.), ii, 43.
% Ibid. i, 205. ® See V.C.H. Warw. ii, 433.

® Cal, Pat. 1307-13, p. 486. " Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls Ser.), i, 276.
Tbid. ii, 219. * Chron. Mon. de Melsa (Rolls Ser.), ii, 333.

403

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

to Durham, whence they were brought back under armed escort by the Earl of Lancaster
to Boroughbridge ; here they were received by the Earls of Hereford and Pembroke and by
them conducted to York, where the king met them. During this year the quarrel between
the king and his uncle of Lancaster reached a climax, intensified by the action of one of the
king’s firmest supporters, John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, who had stolen the Countess of
Lancaster from her husband.*® When a Parliament was summoned early in the summer of 1317
the Earl of Lancaster did not appear, and sent word that he was afraid of treachery. It was then
agreed that a conference should be held; but the earl, still fearful, not only assembled armed forces
at his castle of Pontefract, but, by virtue of his office as Steward of England, disarmed all persons
going to the king’s court at York.*® Finally it was settled that a Parliament should be held in
January 1318 at Lincoln. At the beginning of October Edward marched south, and as he
approached Pontefract put his forces in battle array for fear of an attack.” Two or three days
later, on § October,*® John Lilleburn, an adherent of Lancaster’s‘® and constable of the Earl of
Pembroke’s castle of Mitford ® before it was seized by Gilbert Middleton, came by night to
Knaresborough and seized the castle.*! Roger Damory, the expelled constable of Knaresborough,”
and the Sheriff of York®? besieged the castle, but it was not until 4 March 1318 that Lilleburn
surrendered to John Mowbray and William de Roos on condition of a free pardon. Just about
this time the Scots captured Berwick and came down into Yorkshire, burning Northallerton,
plundering Bolton Abbey, and extorting ransom from the monks of Fountains. On 8 June the
local forces were called out to defend the county,’ but the invaders ravaged as far south as
Pontefract, and turning west made their way back through the hills of Craven." During their
raid they had seized Ripon and threatened to burn the place if 1,000 marks were not paid them ;
to secure payment they took nine hostages, of whom three afterwards escaped ; ® by November
1320 only 240 marks had been paid,*! and some time after this the wives of the six hostages still
in the hands of the Scots petitioned the king to bring pressure upon the burgesses to pay off the
ransom and obtain their release.°? The state of public affairs was now so bad that the king was
forced to come to terms with the powerful Earl of Lancaster, and at a Parliament held at York in
November 1318 charters of pardon were issued to the earl and a large number of his supporters,
many of whom came from this county.® Soon afterwards the private quarrel between Lancaster
and Earl John de Warenne was appeased by Warenne’s grant, for the term of his own life, of
the castles of Conisbrough and Sandal and other estates in Yorkshire.®

At another Parliament, held at York in May 1319, plans were laid for retaking Berwick, and
accordingly in July the army assembled at Newcastle and marched to the Border. The Chan-
cellor, John de Hotham, Bishop of Ely, remained at York, and King Edward sent orders to him
on 9g September to raise all the armed men available in the county and to send them, with
a hundred ditchers from Holderness and all the engines of war then in York Castle, to Berwick.®
But just about the time that this order arrived a Scottish spy was brought’ into the city and
revealed a scheme of James Douglas to capture Queen Isabel, who was staying at some small
town near York. The queen was at once brought under escort into York and sent thence to
Nottingham.®* Meanwhile the news of the Scottish advance had reached the king, and on
18 September he sent orders to the chancellor and the archbishop to assemble all available troops
and repel the invaders.” The county had already to a large extent been denuded of its soldiery,
1,740 Yorkshiremen being at this time with the army at Berwick,® but a force of some size was
hastily collected and, possibly with some reminiscence of the battle of the Standard, a large number
of clergy accompanied the troops when they set out to attack the Scots. The enemy, under
the Earl of Murray, were found, fully prepared, at Myton, on the farther side of the Swale, and
as soon as the English forces had crossed the river they set fire toa number of haystacks, and
concealed by the dense smoke got between the English and the river, cutting off their retreat.

“ Chron. Mon. de Melsa (Rolls Ser.), ii, 333. “ Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls Ser.), ii, 233.
“ Ibid. 230. *” Thid.

*® Cal. Chse, 1318-23, p. 271. ® Cal. Pat. 1313-17, p. 25.

* Ibid. 396. 5) Cal. Chose, 1313-17, p. 575.

5 Thid. 1318-23, p. 160. Ibid. 1313-17, p. 575.

%° Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls Ser.), ii, 55 ; Chron. Mon. de Mea (Rolls Ser.), ii, 335.

” Cal. of Doc. Scot. iti, 114. * Chron. Mon. de Melsa (Rolls Ser.), ii, 335.
* Tbid. ; Letters from Northern Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 274.

® Cal. of Doc. Scot. iti, 133. §! Tbid.

“ Ibid. 264; Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls Ser.), ii, 240.

® Cal. of Doc. Scot. iii, 124. °° Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls Ser.), ii, 243.
* Cal. of Doc. Scot. iii, 124. ® Ibid. 125.

404

POLITICAL HISTORY

Undisciplined and lacking leaders, the Yorkshiremen made little resistance ; 3,000 of them were
slain, including Sir Nicholas Fleming, seven times Mayor of York; the archbishop, the chancellor,
the Abbots of St. Mary’s and Selby, and others who were well mounted, escaped, but many less
fortunate were captured and made to pay heavy ransom. So numerous were the clergy slain that
the battle was afterwards known as ‘the chapter of Myton.’ The archbishop’s standard with its
silver shaft crowned with a gilded crucifix was saved by its bearer, who swam his horse down
the stream until he came to a willow behind which was an overgrown cave, in which he hid
it, but it would seem that he lost a quantity of plate and other valuable baggage. The Scots,
who had entered Yorkshire by the valley of the Swale, advanced unopposed to Castleford and then
turned west, part going down the valley of the Wharfe and part down that of the Aire, turning
up northwards through Settle to Burton-in-Lonsdale and so into Lancashire,” thus avoiding the
forces of the English king, who had raised the siege of Berwick and endeavoured to cut them off
during the retreat.

About this time Edward fell under the influence of the two Despensers, father and son, and
very soon they occupied the same position in his favour that Piers Gaveston had once held ; their
arrogance and greed soon united the better of the old nobility against them, and a leader was
found in Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, Leicester, Ferrers, Lincoln, and Salisbury, the greatest and
richest noble in the land. Earl Thomas summoned the northern lords to meet in the chapter-
house of the priory at Pontefract on 24 May 1321, and there they formed a league for mutual
defence. In order to strengthen their position the earl next called the Archbishop of York and
his suffragans and other leading clergy together at Sherburn in Elmet on 28 June. ‘There,
in the parish church, Sir John de Bek read out the articles of the league and desired the assent
of the assembled prelates. The latter withdrew to the rectory, and, after discussion, gave their

’ cordial support to all measures of defence against the Scots, but desired that the other matters,
touching the reform of abuses in the administration of the kingdom, might stand over till the
next Parliament.”! The Earl of Lancaster was a weak and incapable man and allowed the king
to crush rebellions by Badlesmere in Kent and by the Mortimers in the West before taking up arms
himself ; but at last, in February 1322, he was persuaded by Mowbray, Clifford, and the Earl
of Hereford to assist them in the siege of Tickhill Castle, and when after three weeks’ siege
the castle still held out he marched with his allies on 10 March to Burton-on-Trent against the
king. The royal forces, however, crossed the river, and the rebels, outnumbered and panic-
stricken, retreated hastily to Lancaster’s castle of Pontefract. Hearing of their flight, Robert
Holland, the earl’s treasurer, who was bringing reinforcements, deserted and made terms for
himself at the expense of his lord and benefactor. The Earls of Lancaster and Hereford, now
thoroughly alarmed, abandoned Pontefract Castle and fled towards the Border, hoping, as it was
alleged with much probability,” to obtain help from the Scots. But when they reached Borough-
bridge on 16 March they found Sir Andrew Harcla, Warden of Carlisle, holding the bridge, and
in the endeavour to carry the position the Earl of Hereford was killed. Discouraged by this loss,
and harassed by Harcla’s archers, to whom they could make little reply, their force being mainly
cavalry, Lancaster’s men began to melt away, but they were still too strong for Harcla to venture
to abandon the defensive, and they were allowed to retire for the night into the town of Borough-
bridge. Early next morning Harcla was reinforced by the Sheriff of Yorkshire with 400 men, and
he at once entered Boroughbridge. Panic had spread through the earl’s army, and most of his
followers had fled, those who had not abandoned their weapons being speedily relieved of them
by the men of the towns through which they passed.’ Lancaster himself was led a prisoner to
his own castle of Pontefract, imprisoned in a new tower which rumour said he had built as a
prison for the king, and next day condemned to die as a traitor. Out of respect to his royal
blood he was beheaded, but his companions in arms were hanged, Warin de Lisle, William
Touchet, Thomas Mauduit, Henry Bradburn, William Fitz William, and William Cheney at Ponte-
fract, John Mowbray, Roger Clifford, and Joscelin Dayvill at York, and others elsewhere.”

At the beginning of May 1322 Parliament met at York and revoked the ordinances previously

© Leadman, Battles fought in Yorkshire, 26-31, and authorities there quoted. The date of the battle is
given by chroniclers of Bridlington and Meaux as 12 September ; Walsingham and Trokelowe say 20 Septem-
ber, and although they are not as good authorities they appear to be correct, judging from the king’s letter
of the 18th and the fact that the siege of Berwick was not raised till the 24th (Cad. of Doc. Scot. iii, 126).
0 ig Mon. de Melsa (Rolls Ser.), ii, 337 5 cf. the list of villages burnt by the Scots, Cal. Close, 1318-
23, p. 167.
a Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls Ser.), ii, 61-5.
” See the ‘ Proceedings against the Earl of Lancaster,’ Trokelowe, Chron. et Aun. (Rolls Ser.) 112-24 ;
and Cal. Chse, 1318-23, pp. 525-6. :
? Assize R. 1117 contains a number of cases of the spoiling of fugitives from Boroughbridge.
™ Leadman, Battles Fought in Yorkshire, 52-66, and the authorities there quoted.

405

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

passed against the Despensers ;“* the elder Despenser was created Earl of Winchester, Sir Andrew
Harcla was made Earl of Carlisle,’* and William de Aune, who had successfully defended Tickhill
Castle, was knighted.” This same Parliament authorized a fresh expedition into Scotland, but after
marching to Edinburgh through a country destitute alike of opponents and of food the English army
returned ingloriously, suffering from hunger and disease. On 13 October the army was encamped
on Blackhow Moor close to Byland awaiting reinforcements, and King Edward himself was at
Rievaulx when he heard that the Scots had reached Northallerton.”® Next day Edward went
over to Byland, and while he was there the Scots suddenly attacked the English position, swarming
up the steep wooded slopes, and after a brief struggle were completely victorious. The Earl of
Richmond was amongst the prisoners, and the king himself had a narrow escape, but managed to
get off with the Earl of Kent, the younger Despenser, and a few others to Bridlington, whence next
morning they rode on to Burstwick and so across the Humber into Lincolnshire, accompanied by
Robert of Scarborough, Prior of Bridlington, who carried the treasures of his church with him
into safety.” All the roya! baggage fell into the hands of the Scots, who also plundered the
abbeys of Byland and Rievaulx and then advanced to Malton, where Brus established his head
quarters. The canons of Bridlington wisely sent one of their number who had relations amongst
the Scottish leaders to obtain terms for them, and escaped lightly,® but other monasteries and towns
suffered severely at the hands of the invaders, who advanced as far south as Beverley, setting up their
standard at Hunslet, and after plundering allthe East Riding returned home unmolested.®! Edward
found a scapegoat in the erstwhile victor of Boroughbridge, and the Earl of Carlisle was degraded
and executed for having first remained with his contingent at Boroughbridge instead of hastening
to Blackhow when ordered, and having afterwards made terms with Brus.®? Early in June 1323
atruce for thirteen years was arranged with the Scots and ratified by King Edward at Bishopthorpe.®

In the first year of his reign, 1327, at Whitsuntide, Edward III came to York to prepare for
an advance against the Scots, and here he was joined by Sir John of Hainault with a large force of
foreign troops. While the courtiers were feasting a quarrel arose between some of the foreign
retainers and a body of English archers and rapidly developed into a serious riot, the archers assault-
ing the lodgings of Sir Walter d’Enghien and other Hainaulters, and the foreigners defending
themselves vigorously. | More fortunate was the king’s next visit, in January 1328, when he was
married at York to the beautiful and charming Philippa of Hainault. It was at York also, in
January 1333, that Edward resolved to support the claims of Balliol,*° who six months before had
sailed from Hull to claim the throne of Scotland.®7 Another Parliament held at York in 1335
decreed further measures against the Scots," and it was on his way back from Scotland, in 1336, that
Edward halted to keep Christmas at Hatfield, where his queen gave birth toa son, William of
Hatfield, who lived only a few days and was buried in the cathedral. Ten years later, in 1346,
Queen Philippa was at York, during her husband’s absence in France, and no doubt encouraged
Archbishop Zouch and the other Yorkshire lords who led the army against the Scots to the
decisive victory of Neville’s Cross,” though she did not accompany the forces herself, as Froissart
imagined.*!

Though York was, during the 14th century, practically thesecond capital of England, it seems
to have been behind the times in some respects, as in 1332 the king declared that York more than
any other city in the realm abounded in abominable smells from the filthy streets. We may
conclude that the city suffered at least as severely as the rest of the county from the ravages of the
terrible Black Death in 1349. The effects of the plague belong rather to the economic than to the
political history of the county, but it was largely to the economic changes brought about by
its devastations that the troubles of the early years of the reign of Richard II were due. In York
itself and in the two great boroughs of Beverley and Scarborough the governing bodies, not recogniz-
ing the growing power of the people, continued their traditional autocratic policy. The discontent
of the oppressed commons came to a head about the end of 1380. In November of that year John
Gisburn, Mayor of York, was forcibly deposed and Simon Quixley set up in his place. A few months
later the commons of Beverley rose in arms against their governors. In both towns the struggle
between the two parties continued with mutual violence for about a year, but ended in the victory

> Cal. Close, 1318-23, p. 545.
*® Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls. Ser.), i, 303.

7 Cal. Pat. 1321-4, p. 108. ® Cal. of Doc. Scot. iii, 147.
° Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls. Ser.), ii, 79, 80. © Ibid. 80.
8! Chron. Mon. de Melsa (Rolls Ser.), ii, 346.

* Ibid. 347 3 Cal. of Doc. Scot. iii, Introd. p. x21. " Cal. of Doc. Scot. 150.
“ Froissart, Chron. (ed. Johnes), 28-30. ® Chron. Edw. I and II (Rolls Ser.), ii, 99.
§ Ibid. 110. # Ibid. 104. Ibid. 122.
® Ibid. 128. * Knighton, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 43.
*! Froissart, Chron. (ed. Johnes), 341. * Cal. Chose, 1330-3, p. 610.

406

POLITICAL HISTORY

of the old order.® The rising ot the peasants in the South and Midlands in the summer of 1381,
the news of which sent the Duchess of Lancaster flying in terror first to Pontefract Castle and then
to Knaresborough,” aggravated the trouble in York and Beverley and led to a similar outbreak at
Scarborough. Here therising was headed by Robert Galoun, a man of some standing, and William
Marche, a draper ; their followers adopted a uniform of white hoods with red tippets and adminis-
tered an oath of fealty andmutual support ; the royal officers were expelled and others set up in their
place, but in the end the commonalty of Scarborough had to pay a fine of £400 to obtain the royal
pardon, forty-two persons being exempted from contributing thereto; at the same time Beverley had
to pay I,100 marks, only ten persons obtaining exemption.”
During the last ten years of his reign Richard II visited York fairly frequently and showed his
appreciation of the cordial reception given to him by presenting to the mayor a sword of estate and
also a silver mace and cap of maintenance.” He even, for a short time in 1393, moved the courts
of King’s Bench and Chancery from London to York,” either out of dislike for the Londoners, or
possibly to assist the northern city, which had suffered severely from plague in 1391.” It would
seem, however, that when Henry, Earl of Lancaster, landed at Ravenspur in November 1399”
to claim the throne the corporation of York assisted him with a loan of 500 marks, their brethren
of Hull following their example to the extent of {100.1 A few months later Pontefract Castle
became the prison of the deposed King Richard, and there, on 14 February 1400, he died of
starvation, by his own act, as the Lancastrians alleged.? About midsummer, 1400, Henry IV
came to York to raise men and money for an expedition against the Scots, and while waiting in the
city he received a band of French knights errant, led by Karl de Savoisy ; their challenge was at
once accepted, and in the tournament that ensued two of the king’s men particularly distinguished
themselves. Sir John Cornwaill, or ‘Grenecornewayle,’ was rewarded for his prowess with the
hand of the king’s sister, the widowed Countess of Huntingdon, while ‘ Ranico,’ if we may identify
him with Janico Dartas, received a yearly pension of £100. After the suppression of the rebellion
headed by ‘Hotspur’ and the Earl of Worcester in 1403 King Henry came to York, and there
received the Earl of Northumberland, whom he put under arrest. At the same time he caused a
hermit who had rashly and inaccurately prophesied evil of him to be executed.* Next year,
in June 1404, the king was at Pontefract and there had another interview with the Earl of
Northumberland ; he also sentenced to death Serle, formerly chamberlain to King Richard, who
had been asserting that Richard was still alive.” The severity, bad faith, and partiality displayed
by Henry in his government soon roused the northern lords to fresh rebellion, and in Yorkshire a
leader was found in Archbishop Richard Scrope, a man universally beloved for the purity and
sincerity of his life. The archbishop and Thomas Mowbray, Earl Marshal, then drew up a list of
grievances and suggestions for their remedy, and caused their demands to be set up in English in the
streets of York and on the gates of the monasteries. Very soon a large force was drawn together,
relying partly on the goodness of their cause and partly on assistance from the Earl of Northumber-
land and Lord Bardolf, who were known to be raising men on the Scottish border. With this
undisciplined crowd of armed men the archbishop and the earl marched out to Shipton Moor,
apparently by way of making a demonstration. The Earl of Westmorland and John of Lancaster,
the king’s son, at once advanced at the head of an army and took up a position opposite them.
Finding that he was not attacked, Westmorland sent to the archbishop to ask the meaning of this
martial assembly, to which Scrope replied that it was rather for peace than war, and showed a copy
of his proclamation, the contents of which the wily earl praised, suggesting that they should have a
friendly conference on the matter. The archbishop persuaded the Earl Marshal to agree to this,
and the leaders of both parties met midway between the two armies. Westmorland then
expressed his agreement with the demands of the insurgents, invited the archbishop to show his
friendship by drinking with him, and suggested that he should dismiss his followers. As soon as the
insurgent host had begun to disperse, Westmorland surrounded the archbishop and his companions,
arrested them, and carried them off to Pontefract. King Henry hastened from Wales to Pontefract,
where he refused to allow the archbishop an interview, and thence to York, where the citizens,
terrified at his threats, came out to meet him in abject fear. He then took up his residence at
Bishopthorpe, whither the prisoners were brought. No defence was allowed, and when Chief

*° Réville, Le Soulovement de Travailleurs, pp. cii-cvi, 253-74.

“4 Knighton, Céron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 144. * Réville, loc. cit.
* Cal. Pat. 1381-5, pp. 209-10 ; Roy. Hist. Soc. Trans. (new ser.), XiX, 77-99.

7 Raine, Hist. Towns—York, 77-8.

* Walsingham, Hist. Ang/. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 213. ® Tbid. 203.

10 Ibid. 233. ' Cal. Pat. 1399-1401, p. :

* Trokelowe, Chron. et Ann. (Rolls Ser.), 330. oe aoe

° Ibid. 333 3 Cal, Pat. 1399-1401, pp. 352-4.

* Trokelowe, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), 372. Ibid. 390.

407

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Justice Gascoigne refused to pronounce sentence on the primate, pointing out that such a course
would be illegal, Sir William Fulthorpe undertook the task. Sentence having been pronounced, the
archbishop and the Earl Marshal were led out toa field near Clementhorpe and there beheaded on
8 June. Sir William Plumpton and other leaders of the movement were also put to death, and
fines levied upon the lesser offenders, most of whom soon afterwards received charters of pardon.®
On hearing of the disastrous failure of the Yorkshire rising the Earl of Northumberland and
Lord Bardolf fled into Scotland, but early in 1408 they re-entered England with a body of Scottish
troops, and, recruiting on their way, advanced as far south as Thirsk, where they issued a proclama-
tion calling upon all who loved liberty to take up arms and join them. Their design of seizing
Knaresborough was frustrated by the vigilance of the sheriff, Sir Thomas Rokeby, who occupied
the town with the county levies. The insurgent forces moved down to Tadcaster, pursued by the
sheriff, and took up a position on Bramham Moor near Hazlewood, where on 19 February they
were completely defeated. Northumberland was slain and his hoary head was carried on a stake to
London and set up on London Bridge, in company with the head of Lord Bardolf, who had died
of his wounds. King Henry shortly afterwards came to York and condemned a number of the more
prominent offenders to death, forfeiture, or fine.’

Henry V visited York in 1421 on his way with his newly crowned queen to the shrine of
St. John of Beverley, upon whose feast-day the battle of Agincourt had been fought and won.’
His son Henry VI also passed through the city in 1448 on a pilgrimage to St. Cuthbert at Durham.°
The whole of the first half of the 15th century was for York a period of unprecedented neglect,
and the city was so reduced by the absence of the court and Parliament that in 1449 the hundred
of Ainsty had to be annexed to the county or liberty of the city to enable the citizens to meet their
financial obligations. The county was at this time in a disturbed state, to which the unpopularity
of the archbishop, Cardinal Kemp, contributed ; outbreaks of violence were frequent, and one of
particular ferocity occurred in 1441. During the fair of Ripon the archbishop had policed the town
with a large force of hired soldiers from the Scottish borders. ‘These men on their return home
had to pass through the liberty of Knaresborough Forest, and hearing that the men of that liberty
were assembled in arms at Boroughbridge they turned aside, either to avoid a conflict or, as the
Knaresborough men believed, to attack a small party of the foresters at Thornton. Sir William
Plumpton, Warden of Knaresborough, at once led his followers to Thornton, where they met the
archbishop’s troops, and a regular battle ensued in which several were killed and many injured."
Yorkshire, however, was soon to see more serious fighting than faction riots. In 1460, when the
claim of Richard, Duke of York, to the throne had been admitted and himself acknowledged as
Henry’s heir, Queen Margaret formed a strong party in the north under the Earl of Northumberland
and Lords Clifford, Nevill, and Dacre, who made York their centre. The Duke of York and the
Earl of Salisbury marched north, and reached Sandal Castle on 21 December. The Lancastrians
seem to have been at Pontefract, but they soon advanced to Wakefield, where they disposed their
forces on the common with their wings skilfully hidden. In spite of his great inferiority in
numbers the Duke of York, possibly compelled by a shortage of provisions, determined to take the
offensive without waiting for reinforcements, and on Tuesday, 30 December, led his forces to attack.
The battle was short and sharp ; surrounded on all sides, the Yorkists were cut down or compelled to
surrender. The Duke of York was slain and the Earl of Salisbury captured and beheaded ; with
them fell Sir Thomas Nevill, Sir John Harrington, Sir Edward Bourchier, Sir James Pickering,
Sir Eustace Wentworth, and many other persons of position, while in the pursuit after the battle
Lord Clifford, ‘the butcher,’ murdered with his own hand the young Earl of Rutland, son of the
Duke of York. Queen Margaret seems to have reached York soon after the battle was over, and
by her orders the heads of the fallen Yorkist leaders were set up on the walls of the city, that of
the duke being crowned in mockery with a paper crown.” She is said to have ordered space to be
left for the head of the duke’s eldest son, Edward, Earl of March. Edward, however, rapidly got
together a formidable army, and reaching London on 26 February 1461 was declared king.
Henry and Margaret now fell back upon York, and early in March Edward, with the Earl of
Warwick and the Duke of Norfolk, brought his troops to Pontefract and sent a detachment under
Lord Fitz Walter to secure the passage of the Aire at Ferrybridge. “The Lancastrian army was
encamped on Towton Heath, a little south of Tadcaster, and Lord Clifford with a body of picked

* Trokelowe, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), 403-11 ; Hist. of Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 431-3 ; iii, 288-291.
Cf. Leadman, Battles Fought in York, 70-8.

7 Leadman, op. cit. 79-80; Ca/. Pat. 1405-8, p. 405.

® Ramsay, Lancaster and York, i, 290.

° Raine, Hist. Towns—York, 85.

" Cal. Pat. 1446-52, pp. 221-2.

" Plumpton Correspondence (Camden Soc.), pp. liv—lxii.

* Leadman, Batrles Fought in Yorkshire, 81-93, and the authorities there quoted.

408

POLITICAL HISTORY

troops from Craven made a sudden attack on Ferrybridge early in the morning of Saturday,
28 March, killing Fitz Walter and capturing the position, The Yorkists having crossed the Aire at
Castleford, Clifford fell back to avoid being cut off, but was surrounded, and killed by an arrow
through the throat. Edward’s army advanced to Saxton and drew up on the ridge facing the
Lancastrian lines at Towton across Towton Dale. On the morning of 29 March, Palm Sunday,
a driving snowstorm blew from the south into the faces of the Lancastrians, so that their arrows
fell short, while those of the Yorkists, who had advanced under Lord Fauconberg, wrought great
execution. The advantage of position thus lay with the Yorkists while numbers were on the side
of the Lancastrians, and the fight was desperate and closely contested ; but at last, after some eight
or nine hours’ fighting, the Lancastrians gave way and fell back towards the bridge over the Cock
Stream. The blocking of their retreat by their own numbers threw the columns into disorder,
panic soon followed, and the little river was filled with the fugitives, over whose bodies their
companions pressed in flight towards York. No quarter had been given on either side, and the
slaughter was terrific and appalling, even if the contemporary estimates of over 30,000 dead are
considered to be exaggerated. The number of noble families who lost one or more members on
Towton Field was very great, and the blow to the Lancastrian party was for the time almost
annihilating. Lord Dacre fell, shot, according to tradition, by a boy hidden in an elder tree as he
raised the visor of his helm to take a draught of wine ; the Earl of Northumberland reached York
only to die of his wounds. The Earl of Devon, the only man of rank taken prisoner during
the battle, was beheaded, and his head, with the heads of Lord Kyme and Sir William Hill,
replaced those of the Duke of York, the Earl of Salisbury, and their companions upon the
battlements of York. The Dukes of Somerset and Exeter, seeing that the day was lost, fled to
York and carried Henry and Margaret to Scotland ; so that when Edward entered York, where he
was received by the corporation in procession, on the Monday, he found his royal rival flown.”
Edward kept Easter at York, and remained in the city till the middle of May,'* when he
returned to London to prepare for his coronation. Next year, in November 1462, he again passed
through the city on his way to Durham,” and in December 1463 he made a truce with the Scots
at York.® In 1464 the Lancastrians were active in the north and captured Skipton Castle, but
were defeated by Lord Montagu at Hexham, some of the prisoners being afterwards executed at
Middleham and others at York,” whither King Edward came shortly after his secret marriage to
Elizabeth Wydville. This marriage resulted in a quarrel between the king and the powerful Earl of
Warwick, by whose contrivance rebellion was stirred up in Yorkshire. The first outbreak was
nominally associated with the ancient hospital of St. Leonard at York ; this, the greatest of the
English hospitals, had from time immemorial drawn much of its large revenues from the collection
of certain ¢hraves of corn throughout the county. It was now complained that the proceeds of
this widespread tax on agriculture were devoted not to the relief of sickness and poverty, but to the
enriching of such royal favourites as could secure the mastership. This and other abuses roused
the commons of the East Riding, and under Robert Hildyard, who called himself ‘Robin of
Holderness,’ they advanced to the gates of York. John Nevill, Marquess of Montagu, who had
been made Earl of Northumberland in 1464, was in command of the city and favoured his brother,
the Earl of Warwick ; but as one of the demands of the rebels was that the earldom of Northumber-
land should be restored to the Percies, he sided with the king for the time being, attacking and
dispersing their undisciplined forces with little trouble.® Following close on this came another
rising under Sir John Conyers, who seems to have assumed the name of ‘ Robin of Redesdale,’ Sir
Hugh Fitz Hugh, Sir Hugh Nevill, and Sir John Sutton.’® The rebels, with the support of the
archbishop and the Earl of Warwick, marched south and gained a victory at Edgecote near Banbury,
as a result of which King Edward was captured and sent a prisoner to Warwick’s castle of
Middleham early in August 1469. The earl, however, soon found it politic to release the king,
who went to London. Early in 1470 Lord Scrope raised a rebellion in Richmondshire, and
Edward advanced against him, reaching Doncaster on 18 March. ‘The rebels at once lost heart,
andon 22 March Scrope, Conyers, and Hildyard and other insurgent leaders came in and made terms
with Edward at York." At the same time the king deprived Lord Montagu of the earldom ot
Northumberland and restored it to Henry Percy. Later in the year unrest once more called the
king to York. While he was there, in September, a Lancastrian force, under Queen Margaret
and the Earl of Warwick, landed in the south, and while Edward was at Doncaster, in October,
the Marquess of Montagu, who was at Pontefract with some six thousand men, suddenly declared

% Leadman, Battles Fought in Yorkshire, 94-111, and the authorities there quoted.

4 Cal. Pat. 1461-7, pp. 13, 14. * Ramsay, York and Lancaster, i, 293.
© Three Fifteenth Cent. Chrons. (Camden Soc.), 176. 7 Thid. 178-9.

® Polydore Vergil, Hist. Angi (Camden Soc.), 121-2.

7) Waurin, Cronigues (Rolls Ser.), vi, 601.

3 409 52

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

tor King Henry.” Edward and his friends fled hastily to Lynn, whence they took ship to Holland
on 3 October. But in six months’ time he was back again, landing with a considerable force at
Ravenspur on 14 March 1471.% The towns of Beverley and Hull refused to admit him, and as
he was on his way to York he was met by the recorder, who endeavoured to dissuade him from
going on to the city. Edward, however, pressed on, declaring that he came not to claim the
throne, but only the duchy of York and the estates belonging to him. Under this pretence, which
he is said to have maintained with an oath,** he was admitted to the city and warmly received.
Next day, 19 March, he proceeded to Tadcaster and Sandal,** and southwards to the crowning
victories of Barnet and Tewkesbury.

The Earl of Warwick having fallen at Barnet in April 1471, his Yorkshire estates, with the
hand of his younger daughter Anne, were granted by King Edward to his brother Richard, Duke
of Gloucester. The duke thereby obtained the magnificent fortress of Middleham and the smaller
castle of Sheriff Hutton; to these were added in 1475 the castles of Scarborough and Skipton in
Craven, while upon the death of his brother, the Duke of Clarence, in 1478, Richard acquired
Richmond, and in the same year purchased Helmsley Castle from Sir Thomas de Roos.”* The Duke
of Gloucester was thus extremely powerful in the county, and in addition he was very popular. He
was a frequent visitor to the city,2” and was usually received with ceremony, as on the occasion of
his visit in June 1482, when he was met by the aldermen arrayed in scarlet, the council of twenty-
four in crimson, and all the craftsmen ‘in thar best aray.’*8 He was at this time on his way
against the Scots, and the city, with the Ainsty, provided their usual contingent of 120 archers.”
When Edward IV died, on g April 1483, and the duke became regent to the young Edward V,
it is noticeable that he ordered his favourite city of York to send the exceptional number of four
members to the Parliament summoned for 25 June 1483.°° It was no doubt Richard’s intention
to pack the Parliament, if it ever met, with his own supporters, but in the middle of June he
countermanded the writs issued for Parliament and postponed the coronation of the young king,
sending word to York of the discovery of a plot by the queen-mother against himself. ‘The city
responded with alacrity and at once raised 200 men and sent them to the Earl of Northumberland
at Pontefract, where they arrived about 25 June, about the time that Lord Rivers and
Lord Richard Grey were executed there." These soldiers, wearing the badges of the city and of
the duke, marched south with the earl, and were no doubt part of the body of north-country troops
whose rusty armour and general uncouthness excited the contempt of the Londoners at the time
of Richard’s coronation.*!

Yorkshire accepted the usurpation of Richard III with satisfaction, and when they heard, early
in August 1483, that he intended to visit the city, the corporation prepared with alacrity to receive
him with fitting pomp, not requiring the hints of his secretary, John Kendal, that they should hang
the streets with ‘clothes of arras, tapistre werk and other,’ and prepare pageantry. The royal
party reached Pontefract about 25 August, and were there joined by the young Prince Edward,
who had been living at Middleham, and on 30 August they entered the city. Their reception
was magnificent ; over £ 400 had been raised by voluntary contributions of the leading citizens for
the festivities, and on Sunday, 7 September, the pageant or mystery play of the Creed was acted for
the king’s amusement. But the great day was Monday, 8 September, when in the presence of a
brilliant crowd of nobles and prelates the king bestowed the honour of knighthood upon Prince
Edward and invested him with the dignity of Prince of Wales. So pleased was the king with his
reception that on 17 September he granted to the citizens, of his own free will and without their
petition, relief from a considerable portion of their fee farm.*® A few days later he left York and
went to Pontefract, and about the middle of October he sent orders, which were at once obeyed,
for troops to be raised to suppress the rebellion of the Duke of Buckingham.® In 1484 King
Richard was again at York early in May, and on the sixth of that month at Middleham, where
his son had died a few weeks before.*4# After Prince Edward’s death precedence and the
presumptive heirship to the crown rested between Richard’s nephews, the Earls of Lincoln and
Warwick, and they seem to have acted as heads of the northern council, which sat sometimes at
Sandal and sometimes at Sheriff Hutton.*

One of the first acts of Henry VII on assuming the crown after the death of Richard at
Bosworth was to send to Sheriff Hutton to fetch away the young Earl of Warwick, whom he placed

Waurin, Cromigues (Rolls Ser.), vi, 611.

® Tbid. 642. * Polydore Vergil, Hist. Angl. (Camden Soc.), 139.
°* THe Restoration of Edw. IV (Camden Soc.), 5.

°° Davies, Municipal Rec. of City of York, 46-9. 7 Ibid. passim.

8 Ibid. 128. * Ibid. 128-38.

® Ibid. ry4. 3% Ibid. 146-56.

| Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit. 725. * Davies, op. cit. 160-75, 280-8.

3 Thid. 177-84. ¥ Thid. 188. *® Ibid. 211.

410

POLITICAL HISTORY

in the safer custody of the Tower of London, and Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, whom
he later married, thereby uniting the rival roses of Lancaster and York. In the spring of 1486
Henry came in state to York, dispersing on the way a small body of insurgents who were assembling
round Ripon and Middleham. The citizens, who had been very urgent in protesting their love to
the house of Lancaster, gave Henry an even more elaborately magnificent welcome than they had
afforded to the late king.3* Early the next year the Earl of Lincoln and Lord Lovel took up arms
on behalf of a boy whom they asserted to be the Earl of Warwick, but who was in fact a son of an
Oxford baker, Lambert Symnell by name. With a body of Flemish troops, under Martin Schwartz,
they landed first in Ireland, where they were well received and obtained many recruits, and then
crossed, on 4 June, to the coast of Lancashire and so came to Masham in the North Riding. F rom
Masham they wrote to the mayor and citizens of York requiring admission to the city. Ever since
the rebellion had become known the city authorities had been in communication with the king and
the Earl of Northumberland. Having obtained guns from Scarborough, and extra soldiers to make up
for the weak state of the castle, they sent a refusal by three of the city chamberlains, who found the
rebels at Boroughbridge, and returned on 8 June to say that the Earl of Lincoln was marching
southwards, avoiding York. Lord Clifford then brought reinforcements into the city, and afterwards
marched out to Tadcaster, where he got the worst of a skirmish. He returned to York, and with
the Earl of Northumberland and 6,000 men started southwards to join the king. Hardly had they
gone when a force under the Scropes of Bolton and Upsall made an attack on Bootham Bar. They
were easily repulsed, but Northumberland turned back and re-entered the city, consequently the
Yorkshire forces did not take part in the battle at Stoke, near Newark, on 15 June, when the Earl
of Lincoln was slain, Lambert Symnell captured, and his adherents scattered.*”7 To complete his
triumph Henry made a progress through the north, visiting York on 30 July, Roger Layton being then
beheaded for treason, and the mayor and one of the aldermen knighted for their loyalty.* However
loyal York may have been, the county was not very favourable to Henry, and in 1489 the levying
of a heavy subsidy for war in Britanny caused an outbreak in which the Earl of Northumberland
was slain at Thirsk, and York itself was stormed and for a while held by the insurgents.** The
king, with the Earls of Surrey and Shrewsbury, came north and suppressed the rising for the time
being ; but it broke out again in 1491, and necessitated military operations by the Earl of Surrey at
Ackworth near Pontefract.*°

During the early years of the 16th century Yorkshire played a small part in history, and there
is little to record beyond its connexion with the Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII.
She had been married by proxy to James IV of Scotland in 1502, and in July 1503 set out to join
her royal husband. On 14 July she reached Pontefract, and next day rode on to Tadcaster, where
the Sheriffs of York and a deputation met her and escorted her forward, her cavalcade being swollen
every few miles by the local nobles and their attendants until at Dringhouses she was met by the
great Earl of Northumberland, gorgeous in crimson velvet, gold, and jewels, with a train of three
hundred mounted men. The young queen, who so far had ridden pillion behind Sir David Owen,
now entered her state litter, and so the procession reached Micklegate Bar, where the mayor, Sir
John Gilliot, and the aldermen in their robes added further resplendence to the pageant which
wound its way slowly through the narrow streets to the minster and the archbishop’s palace. Next
day, Sunday, Queen Margaret attended the installation of Archbishop Savage, and on Monday
set out for Newburgh. ‘Ten years later, in September 1513, the Earl of Surrey, who had brought
Margaret to York in this joyful fashion, brought the body of her husband, James IV, to the city
from the fatal field of Flodden. On 14 April 1516 Margaret, who had married the Earl of Angus
in haste and was already repenting in leisure, was again a visitor at York and again met with a
hearty reception, and a year later, in May 1517, on her return from her brother’s court she once
more spent a few days in the city.*!

If the century opened thus quietly, the county was destined soon to be the centre of all
attention. The religious, social, and political upheaval brought about by the policy of Henry VIII
affected all England, but the northern counties in particular. The inclosure of commons and
conversion of arable into pasture, with consequent displacement of labour, hit the poor agricultural
districts of the north very hard, and this was aggravated by the ever-increasing burden of taxation.
The Statute of Uses,” which repealed the legal fiction by which the claims of primogeniture were
evaded, made the bequest of land impossible, and caused much irritation amongst the landowning
class. The divorce of Queen Katherine seemed to many persons invalid, and the declared
illegitimacy of Princess Mary unjust, while the proposal that the king should be empowered to

% Raine, Historic Towns—York, 92-4.

*” Davies, ‘Original Doc. relating to Lambert Symnell’s Rebellion,’ Roy. Arch. Inst. Proc. at York.
8 Raine, Hist. Towns—TYork, 95. ° Plumpton Correspondence (Camden Soc.), 265.
“Tbid. 95. "Yorks. Arch. Fourn. vii, 304-29.

“Stat. 27 Hen. VIII, cap. ro.

411

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

bequeath the crown was rightly regarded as a dangerous innovation. Orthodox Catholics, who
were very numerous in the north, saw with horror men whom they regarded as heretics in favour
at Court and promoted to bishoprics. The final blow was the suppression of the less wealthy
monasteries. The wild accusations of immorality and wickedness brought against these establish-
ments by their suppressors went for little amongst the populace.* The abbeys were the bankers of
the gentry, the great employers of labour and relievers of distress, and the entertainers of the
traveller. The people rightly foresaw that the greater houses would soon follow the lesser, and a
plentiful crop of rumours arose that any church less than five miles from another was to be pulled
down, that all church plate was to be seized and only pewter chalices used, that fees were to be
extorted for baptisms, weddings, and funerals.“ In the first week of October 1536 the smouldering
fires of discontent blazed out into rebellion in Lincolnshire. The people rose and forced the gentry
to join with them in demanding the restoration of the religious houses, the repeal of the Statute of
Uses, the removal and punishment of the upstart Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, whom they saw to be
the chief agent in all the hated changes and supposed to be their originator, and the reform of other
abuses. The insurgents had no leader, and with good reason distrusted most of the gentry whom
they had put at their head. Within a fortnight the whole rising had collapsed. Amongst the
gentry whom the commons had seized was Robert Aske, a member of an old and well-connected
family in Yorkshire, practising as a lawyer at Westminster. He happened to be near Sawcliffe*
when the Lincolnshire rising broke out, and as his sympathies were evidently well known to be
with them, the insurgents appointed him one of their captains; but he did not play any part in this
rising, as by his endeavours to unite the commons and the gentry he became suspected by both.
Upon the collapse of the rising he returned to Yorkshire, where he had already tried to keep the
people quiet by instructing the men of Marshland to wait for those of Howdenshire, and the men of
Howdenshire to wait for those of Marshland, and both to wait for orders from himself. For a few
days he was successful, but meanwhile the commons had risen in the north of the county, round
Dent, Sedbergh, and Wensleydale. About the same time, on Sunday 8 October, a proclamation
in Aske’s name, but apparently not written by him,“ reached Beverley ; Roger Kitchen at once
rang the town bell, and Richard Endyke proclaimed in the market-place that all should take the oath
to the commons on pain of death. Next day the people assembled in arms on Westwood Green,
and, by persuasion of an Observant Friar, chose William Stapleton as their captain, with his nephew,
Brian Stapleton, Richard Wharton, and the bailiff of Beverley as petty captains.“* Beacons were
fired and recruits flocked in from all sides, and when Aske reached Howdenshire on Thursday,
12 October, the church bells were jangling an alarm and the whole district was up in arms. Aske
at once took command and ordered a muster at Weighton, and next day advanced with part of his
forces towards York, the rest going with Stapleton to Hull. Meanwhile Lord Darcy had hastily
occupied Pontefract Castle for the king, and had been joined there by Archbishop Lee, Archdeacon
Magnus, and other loyalists. The castle, however, was in bad repair and not furnished with guns
or ammunition, the garrison was unreliable,and the townspeople would not supply provisions.4® The
Earl of Shrewsbury and the Duke of Norfolk were hastening towards Doncaster; °° but York had
declared for the insurgents on the 16th,"! and so rapid were their successes that Sir Thomas Percy
of Seamer, who had been sent for by Aske to help in taking York and had then been counter-
manded to Hull, was stopped with the information that Hull had fallen, and was ordered to
Pontefract, where he arrived only to find that the castle had surrendered on 20 October.” Lord
Darcy, indeed, had not been in a position to offer any long resistance, and it is clear that he was not
sorry to be compelled to join the insurgents, as he and Sir Robert Constable at once took up the
position of leaders of the commons with Aske. Aske had displayed such skill and energy that he
was now acclaimed chief captain, though he wished some person of higher position to take the post.
Not only did he bring his opponents to terms quickly, but he also kept strict discipline in his host,
and when his men entered York there was no plundering, and all that was taken was paid for. At
Hull, also, discipline was enforced by Sir William Stapleton, who prevented his men from setting
fire to the shipping, and treated a man found guilty of robbery to so salutary a ducking in the river
that no more cases of theft occurred.

The old Earl of Northumberland, lying ill at Wressell Castle, refused to have anything to say

“1. and P. Hen. VIIL, xii (1), 901. “Ibid. xi, 768.

“Thid. xii (1), 6; this account of the rising given by Aske himself, together with his later depositions
when arrested (ibid. go1, 946, 1,175), and the depositions of William Stapleton (ibid. 392), are the best
authorities for the general course of events during the Pilgrimage of Grace.

“SL. and P. Hen. VIII, xi, 563-4, 841. “’ Ibid. xii (1), 6.
“Thid. 392. “Thid. 1022.

* Tbid. xi, 771-6. ‘Ibid. xii (1), 1018.
* Thid. 393. Ibid. 6, 946.

* Ibid. 392.

412

POLITICAL HISTORY

to the rebellion, Sir Ralph Eure still held Scarborough and the Earl of Cumberland Skipton Castle,
with the help of Christopher Aske, brother of the insurgent captain, but most of the county
magnates were now, willingly or unwillingly, with the insurgents. Shortly after the surrender of
Pontefract Castle, Thomas Miller, Lancaster herald, arrived in the town with a royal proclamation
of a general pardon for all except the ringleaders, but he was not allowed to read it at the market
cross, and was brought before Aske, who received him courteously and gave him a written copy ot
the articles or demands of the insurgents.°* Hearing that the Duke of Norfolk was at Doncaster,
Aske advanced with about 35,000 men, the men of Durham, Cleveland and Richmondshire going
first, under Lords Nevill, Lumley, and Latimer, Sir Thomas Hilton and Sir Thomas Percy. Next
came the main body of Yorkshire under Aske himself, Sir Robert Constable and Lord Darcy, the
rear being brought up by 12,000 men from the north and west of the county under Lord Scrope,
Sir Christopher Danby, and Sir William Malore. Against this great force Norfolk could only
oppose 8,000 men, many of whom were believed secretly to favour the rising.” Had the
insurgents been rebels aiming at the king’s overthrow they could have made short work of their
opponents, in spite of the swollen waters of the Don which separated the two hosts, but they were
in the impossible position of conservative revolutionists. A victory resulting in the death of the
Duke of Norfolk and the Earls of Shrewsbury, Rutland, and Huntingdon would have been as bad
as a defeat ; °° they were thoroughly loyal to the king ; their quarrel was with Cromwell and his
infamous ministers.°° Negotiations were opened, in which Norfolk was perfectly willing to perjure
himself by making promises and then breaking them, and at last Sir Ralph Ellerker and Robert
Bowes were sent up under a safe conduct with the Duke of Norfolk to lay their demands before the
king. Henry replied uncompromisingly to demands of the commons, denying their right to
dictate to him,® and kept Ellerker and Bowes at court for some days,®! while he endeavoured to
sow dissension by reproaching the insurgent nobles with serving under a man so socially inferior as
Aske. Norfolk at the same time endeavoured to persuade Darcy to betray Aske, but the old lord
refused indignantly. Meanwhile the commons were growing impatient and the king’s
commanders were urging the grant of a complete pardon and other concessions. Henry for some
time endeavoured to except at least a few of the ringleaders from the pardon, but had at last to’
yield. Arrangements were made for the insurgents to meet the duke at Doncaster® on
5 December, and a preliminary council was held on 2 December at Pontefract, at which were
present the Lords Darcy, Scrope, Nevill, Latimer, Lumley, and Conyers, Sir Robert Constable and
a large number of the knights and esquires, representatives of the families of Vavassour, Hilliard,
Wolsthrope, Fairfax, Bulmer, Lawson, Hamerton, Tempest, Norton, Gascoigne, Plumpton, and
indeed of practically all the leading county families.8® When the delegates chosen by this
conference met the Duke of Norfolk, as arranged, he promised on the king’s part a full pardon to
all concerned in the rising, and further undertook that a Parliament should be held at York the next
year at which the grievances of the commons should be discussed, and for this Parliament burgesses
should be freely elected not only for York and Scarborough, but also for Beverley, Ripon,
Richmond, Pontefract, Wakefield, Skipton, and Kendal.” As a further mark of the king having
remitted his displeasure he would have the queen (Jane Seymour) crowned at York. Aske,
confident in the justice of his cause and the knowledge of his own loyalty, accepted these terms
without demanding any security for their fulfilment, renounced his position as chief captain, and tore
off the badge of the Five Wounds of Christ, which had been worn by all the participants in this
Pilgrimage of Grace,® saying that henceforth he would wear no badge but the king’s, and his
example was followed by the other leaders.°? The levies on either side were then dismissed and
Aske sent word of the settlement to the men of Craven and the Lancashire borders just in time to
prevent a collision with the Earl of Derby.”

King Henry now sent for Aske and other leaders of the movement, and treating them with
courtesy and apparent friendliness, confirmed their belief in his intention to redress their grievances.”
But when Aske returned to Yorkshire, early in January 1537, he found that the commons were in
a state of excitement; they feared that the Parliament would be postponed indefinitely ; they
suspected that the king had bribed the gentry and even Aske himself; it was known that Cromwell
was still in favour and it was rumoured that Hull was being fortified.”” Aske did his best to allay

*°L. and P, Hen. VIII, xii (1), 1186. 58 Thid. xi, 826. "Ibid. xii (1), 6. * Ibid. 1175.

Tbid. xi, 841 ; a smith at Dent said to a man who wore the king’s livery, ‘Thy master is a thief, for
he pulleth down all our churches.’ But he was rebuked and everyone said, ‘It is not the king’s deed but the
deed of Cromwell, and if we had him here we would crum him and crum him that he was never so erommmed
and if thy master were here we would new crown him.’ .

Ibid. xi, 957. 5 Ibid. 1064. “Ibid. 1175. $3 Thid.

4 Ibid. 955, 1237, 1271. Ibid. 1246. ~ 8 Ibid. xii (1), 6>s ibid
Ibid. gor (73). Ibid. 6. Ibid. xi, 1046.

1 [bid. xii (1), 20, 43, 44, 46. ™ Ibid. 67, 138.

413

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

their fears and prevent their taking up arms again, and urged the king to send down the Duke of
Norfolk as soon as possible to appease the people, but on 8 January John Hallom, one of the
captains of the commons for Yorkswold, began to scheme for the capture of Hull and Scarborough.”
For the moment Aske managed to keep him quiet, but two days later Hallom was visited at
Watton by Sir Francis Bigod. Bigod seems to have been a man of some learning and at one
time to have inclined towards the party of the Reformation ;” he had remained quietly at
Mulgrave Castle near Whitby during the early days of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and although
present at the conference at Pontefract was mistrusted by the commons. For some reason he now
came to Hallom, denounced the royal pardon as of no effect because it was issued in Henry’s name
but not actually by him, and after reading to Hallom a book which he had written defining the
respective authority of the pope and the king he went into Watton Priory and persuaded the
canons to elect a new prior in place of one intruded by Cromwell and expelled during the
late rising. He then left, and on 15 January wrote to Hallom to seize Hull while he himself
took Scarborough. Hallom at once rode to Hull with a score of men, expecting to find another
sixty waiting for him in the town ; finding that the expected support was not forthcoming he
withdrew, but being reproached for deserting his men rode back into the town, where he was at
once attacked by two of the aldermen and after a short struggle captured. Meanwhile Bigod had
fired beacons and called a muster at Settrington early on 16 January. Amongst those who
attended was George Lumley, son and heir of Lord Lumley, and him Bigod forced to act as
captain for the attack on Scarborough. Bigod then rode off towards Hull while Lumley with
some forty men went towards Scarborough, picking up another hundred or so on his way. The
castle apparently was undefended, but Lumley persuaded his men not to enter it, and after setting
a watch round it and appointing John Wyvell and Ralph Fenton as captains he went off home
and left the rising to collapse, which it did as soon as Sir Ralph Eure, the keeper of the castle,
returned.”® Bigod, in the meantime, had been trying to raise a force for the capture of Hull
and the release of Hallom, but Aske and Sir Robert Constable poured cold water on his attempt,
and when he reached Beverley Sir Ralph Ellerker attacked him and scattered his following with
little trouble.’®

The Duke of Norfolk now came north, not on a mission of pacification but of vengeance.
Fortunately for Yorkshire he began with the more northern counties and soon realized that
it would be a mistake to carry vengeance too far.”” The king, moreover, seeing his way to use the
rising of Bigod and Hallom for the destruction of the leaders of the earlier rising, whom he had
had to pardon, could afford to be merciful to the lesser offenders. Bigod was arrested and sent up
to London ; Aske and the other leaders were sent for and came of their own free will or under
pressure, and the whole of those who had so lately defied him were soon in the king’s power.
Although Aske, Lord Darcy, and Sir Robert Constable had done their best to keep the commons
quiet and had actually prevented them from rising, it was easy to twist their acts and words into
a usurpation of the king’s authority and an expression of sympathy with the cause if not with the
actions of Bigod and Hallom.” A slight misadventure occurred at the beginning of the York
assizes, when William Levening was acquitted by the jury,’® to the great annoyance of Norfolk
and the king, but the duke took good care that the jury selected for the preliminary trial of the
more important prisoners should return a true bill against them.® The result of the actual trial
at Westminster in May 1537 was a foregone conclusion. Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Stephen
Hamerton, and Sir John Bulmer pleaded guilty but gained nothing thereby, they being hanged
at Tyburn with Bigod, Lumley, Nicholas Tempest,®! the Abbots of Fountains and Jervaulx, the
ex-Prior of Guisborough and others; Lady Bulmer was burnt at Smithfield and Lord Darcy
executed on Tower Hill.® Early in July the last two victims were put to death, Sir Robert
Constable being hanged in chains at Hull, of which town he had been commander during the
rising, and Robert Aske suffering at York, ‘ where he was in his greatest and most frantic glory.’ *
The king need fear no more risings, for the north ‘was never in a more dreadful and true
obeisance.’

It is needless to say that the promise of a Parliament and coronation of the queen at York was
not fulfilled, and the only visit paid by Henry VIII to Yorkshire was in 1540.8 The ostensible
object of the journey was to meet King James V of Scotland, but as, after much correspondence,

® The chief sources for the account of Hallom’s rising are L. and P. Hen. VIII, xii (1), 201, 370.

™ Ibid. Introd. pp. vi, vil. * L. and P. Hen. VIII, xii (1), 369.

7 Ibid. 159, 161, 174. 7 Ibid. 609.

78 Thid. 847-8. ” Ibid. 731.

© Ibid. 1172. * For the story of Nicholas Tempest see Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xi, 246-78.
@ L. and P. Hen. VIII, xii (2), Introd. pp. ii, iii. % Ibid. 156, 292.

* Ibid. 59.

® Hunter, ‘Henry VIII’s Progress in Yorks,’ Roy. Arch. Inst. Proc. at York.
414

POLITICAL HISTORY

the Scottish king did not come outh the royal progress may rather be regarded as the last act
in the drama of the Pilgrimage of Grace. On his entry into Yorkshire on 17 August the king
was met by some four or five thousand of the gentry and yeomen of the county. Those who had
been loyal during the late rising were graciously welcomed by Henry, but the remainder had to
kneel while Sir Robert Bowes recited on their behalf a more than humble acknowledgement of
their past offences and petition for forgiveness. Besides written copies of this humiliating
submission the king was presented with a gift of £go0."° After a week spent in hunting at Hatfield
the court moved on 23 August to Pontefract ; during the journey, on the high ground of Barnsdale,
not far north of the position occupied by the insurgents during the negotiations at Doncaster, the
archbishop and three hundred clergy made their humble submission to the king and offered him
£600. At Pontefract the court remained till 3 September, going afterwards to Cawood, Wressell,
Leconfield and, on 10 September, to Hull, and two days later to Sir Ralph Ellerker’s house at
Risby. Henry still seems to have expected King James, as he was fitting up with great splendour
a lodging in one of the suppressed religious houses at York, but at last he found that his guest was
not coming, and on 18 September ® he entered the city, the corporation in penitential garb making
a fulsome submission and a gift of a silver gilt cup containing £100, and also giving another cup
with £40 to the queen, Katherine Howard, who had during the stay at Pontefract been carrying
on that illicit connexion with Dereham and Culpeper which was to bring her to the scaffold
before the end of the year. On 26 September the king left York, and after visiting Holme,
which had formerly belonged to Sir Robert Constable, and Leconfield arrived at Hull on
1 October, apparently just after John Johnson had been elected mayor. In deference, it would
seem, to the royal wishes Johnson discovered good reasons for resigning office in favour of Sir John
Elland. Sir John and the king at once drew up plans for the better fortification of the town of
Hull, and on 6 October Henry crossed over into Lincolnshire. But although Henry paid no more
visits to Yorkshire he left behind him a representative in the person of the president of the Council
of the North, a council appointed in 1537 for the control of the Scottish border and of England
generally north of the Humber, whose chief centre was at York.

Yorkshire, with its independent traditions, continued to contribute its share to most outbreaks
against the Government. During the general disturbances of 1549, which centred round the
eastern counties, some 3,000 men rose in the neighbourhood of Scarborough under William Dale,
parish clerk of Seamer, William Ambler, and John Stevenson. ‘The Lord President of the North,
however, took prompt measures ; the assembly dispersed, and the leaders were captured and executed
at York.8* The next rising in the county was still more local and inefficient. In April 1557
Thomas Stafford, who had been implicated in Wyatt’s rebellion and had fled abroad, landed at
Scarborough with a small force and seized the castle. Being a son of Lord Stafford he was of royal
descent,® and on this ground seems to have constituted himself ‘ protector’ of the English, basing
his action on opposition to the Spanish marriage. The Earl of Westmorland at once raised the
county levies and captured the castle, apparently without a shot being fired ; Stafford and five of his
accomplices were executed in London, and some thirty other persons involved in the attempt
suffered death at York and in various towns of the East Riding.”

The next rebellion was on a far larger and more dangerous scale.*! During the time that
Mary Queen of Scots was detained at Lord Scrope’s castle of Bolton in 1568 a scheme for her
marriage to the Duke of Norfolk had been mooted. Shortly after this, however, the duke had been
sent for to London and confined in the Tower. In the autumn of 1569 there were rumours that
the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland were preparing to rise. As a matter of fact they
had held a meeting at Topcliffe, Northumberland’s house, to discuss means for rescuing Mary
Stuart from Tutbury where she was now confined, but as they were plotting a message arrived
from the Duke of Norfolk begging them not to proceed further in the matter or he would lose his
head. The earls, who seem to have entered the conspiracy half-heartedly, wished to give up the
scheme, but some of the gentry who were the real movers, especially the Nortons of Norton
Conyers, Thomas Markenfeld and John Swinburne, vowed that they would go on, and if they were
not to move in the matter of the marriage of Mary and Norfolk then they would rise for religion.
The question then arose whether such a course would have the sanction of the Church, and over
this point the conference broke up without coming to any decision. Meanwhile the Earl of Sussex,
Lord President of the North, had had an interview with the earls in October and had come to the
conclusion that they were loyal. But when in November they made various excuses for not obeying

L. and P. Hen. VIII, xvi, 1130.

Tbid. 1183, 1208. Hunter gives the date of entry to York as 15 September, and the same date is
given by Raine, Hist. Towns—York, 103.

8 Whellan, Hist. of York, i, 194. ° Dict. Nat. Biog.

Stowe, Annals (ed. 1631), 630; Machyn, Diary (Camd. Soc.), 135-7.
— ° See Sir C. Sharpe, Mem. of the Rebellion of 1569 ; Cal. $.P. Dom. Add. 1566-79.

415

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

the queen’s orders to come before the council at York he grew suspicious. At last on 10 November
the messenger sent by Sussex to Topcliffe returned saying that Northumberland had refused to come
and, on a false rumour that Sir Oswald Wilsthrope had come to arrest him, had fled, at the same
time causing the bells to ring an alarm to raise the country. The rebels assembled at Brancepeth
and went thence to Durham, where they entered the cathedral, threw down the communion table
and replaced the altar stone and restored the ancient form of service. The forces at York were
small, and had the rebels attempted to carry out the plan at one time suggested of making a sudden
raid on the city on a Sunday during service time, there can be little doubt that the city would have
fallen an easy prey. As it was, Sussex and Lord Hunsdon, who had been joined with him in
command, dared not risk a battle, and had to stay behind their walls while the rebels advanced
southwards with growing forces. By 20 November they had reached Wetherby and Tadcaster,
their aim being to seize Tutbury and release Mary, but their design being known the royal
prisoner was hurried south to Coventry. Foiled in one half of their scheme and finding that the
southern districts were not inclined to rise for the cause of religion, while Pontefract was held by
Sir Thomas Gargrave and Doncaster by Lord Darcy, the rebels retreated aimlessly northwards, and
by the 28th had reached Richmondshire. They then turned to the siege of Barnard Castle.
Sir George Bowes, who was in command there, offered a steady resistance. To lessen the strain upon
his provisions he caused his cavalry to cut their way through the enemy by a sudden sally, but
wholesale desertions occurred from his garrison and he was obliged to surrender the castle on the
terms that he and the remainder of the garrison might go free. “This success did not much assist the
rebellion. By the middle of December the royal forces had reached Yorkshire and were marching
north ; the insurgent army melted away, its leaders fled ; the Earl of Westmorland was fortunate
enough to escape to the Continent, but the Earl of Northumberland after crossing the border was be-
trayed by Hector Armstrong to the Scottish Regent and by him eventually handed over to his enemies.
Elizabeth had been frightened and, what was still worse in her eyes, put to expense by the rising, and
the vengeance which she exacted was terrible. In January Sir George Bowes was sent as provost
marshal to make an example of those who had participated in the rebellion. The number of the York-
shire peasantry involved does not seem to have excceded about 4,000 or 5,000 ; about one in every six
seems to have been condemned to death, though the actual number exccuted was, from various
causes, about 500. In every town where any had risen one or more persons were hanged ;
practically all the constables of the North and West Ridings and Richmondshire seem to have
suffered. The men of position who had lands to escheat were reserved for more leisurely trial ;
eleven of these were condemned to die, but seven were with some difficulty reprieved. Finally on
22 August 1572 the Earl of Northumberland was beheaded on a scaffold set up in the Pavement
at York.

At the time of the threatened invasion by the Spanish Armada Hull was ordered to send to
the royal fleet two ships and a pinnace;™ the authorities at first endeavoured to evade this
obligation by pleading that their ships were all absent on voyages, but it would seem that a sharp
letter from head quarters brought the necessary ships into port,” and the question then arose of the
cost of fitting them out. York, as reaping so much gain from the commercial port of Hull, was
ordered to contribute ; Scarborough also, as a member of Hull, assisted, and some of the larger
inland towns, such as Halifax, Leeds and Wakefield,™® helped. At the same time troops were
being put under arms to repel any landing, and it would seem that twelve days’ training was
considered sufficient to fit these raw levies to face the veterans of Spain. At any rate the
300 men from Ryedale and Bulmer who were put under Sir William Fairfax at the end of May
1588 were to be trained four times before 22 July, each time three days together; for the first
training only a small charge of powder was to be used as most of the men were unused to guns,
and had to be got accustomed to the flash and recoil by degrees.** Every hundred infantry were
to be composed of 35 men with corslets, 40 with culivers or hand guns, 15 with bills and 10 with
bows. A body of horse was also to be raised, the wealthier gentry being required to provide one
or more troopers.*® The chief difficulty with regard to cavalry in Yorkshire seems to have been
the unwillingness of the gentry to set a precedent, which might afterwards be used to their injury,
by providing more men than they were legally bound to find.” This tendency appears again next
year, in July 1589, when Lord Eure and the other justices of the peace for the county met to
consider the number of soldiers that they should return as available. It was agreed to certify 6,000
trained footmen, with another 4,000 untrained, who were not to be sent out of the county, and
400 light horsemen; a cautious note was added that 200 more horsemen with petronels could
probably be raised, but the lord lieutenant was to keep this private and not certify it to the council

™ Acts of P.C. 1538, p. 10. * Cal. S.P. Dom. 1581-90, pp. 374-7.
4 Acts of P.C. 1538, pp. 46, 282. * Var. Coll. (Hist. MSS. Com.), ii, 102.
* Thid. 103. ” Cal. 8.P. Dom. Add. 1580-1625, p. 250.

416

POLITICAL HISTORY

lest it be put on record as a precedent. There were also difficulties about armour, those that had
any refusing to lend it for common use, so that in 1588 corslets had to be bought in London and
sent down, while in 1596 the gentry were with difficulty persuaded to buy arms on ane
assurance that they should be treated as their own property and not recorded on the muster books,
This lack of arms in the county had been urged in 1584 asa reason for not supplying more than
6,000 troops when the council considered that on a muster roll of 42,000 able men Yorkshire
ought to provide 10,000 soldiers! To amend this it was proposed in 1600 to establish a central
magazine or armoury at York; by this means the weapons would be kept much better and there
would be the additional advantage that the armament of the county would be in the hands of the
president, and would not be available for intending insurgents.? So far as the Yorkshire troops had
any definite uniform at this time it would seem to have been blue, as in 1575 the light horsemen
for Ireland were to be equipped with ‘a good plate coat, a scull or sallet with a blue covering, a
convenient doublet and hose, a pair of boots, a sword and a dagger and blue cloak,’* and in 1587
the troops sent up to Berwick from Ryedale and Pickeringlythe wore ‘cassocks and breeches of
blue cloth guarded with yellow.’* The quality of these levies sent up to the Scottish borders left
much to be desired ; Lord Scrope described them as ‘ the wretchediste creatures that could be sent,
and as ill furnisht’ ; and when Captain Ellis ‘requierd handsome men and to have them better furnisht,
the justices aunserid him that hee must take them or none’;° from which we may perhaps
conclude that the loyalty of the Yorkshire gentry at this time did not go as deep as their pockets.
On the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England, vacant by the death of
Elizabeth on 24 March 1603, York was again honoured by a royal visit. King James on his way
to London was met on the borders of the county by the sheriff and a band of gentry on 15 April,
and conducted to Topcliffe, where he spent the night. Next day he was met at the northern
bounds of York by the sheriffs of the city, and at Micklegate Bar he was received by the lord
mayor and aldermen. ‘That day and the next, which was Sunday, the king spent at York, and
after much feasting, speech-making, and giving of presents, he was escorted on the Monday to the
southern limits of the city, at Tadcaster Bridge, and thence rode to Grimston, where he knighted the
lord mayor. The following June the queen and Prince Henry and the Lady Elizabeth, her children,
were also entertained at York on their way south.’ Next year a less welcome visitor came to the
city ; the plague, which had raged in London, reached York, and ina short time slew 3,500 persons.®
From 1620 to 1630 the great feature of Yorkshire history was thestruggle between the factions
of Sir John Savile of Howley and Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards famous as the Earl of
Strafford. The return of Sir Thomas and Sir George Calvert as knights of the shire on Christmas
Day 1620 was petitioned against by Sir John Savile, who alleged that the sheriff, Sir Thomas
Gower, had excluded a great number of voters who were in his interest, and had accepted
votes given for his opponents without inquiring whether the voters were freeholders, and also that
Wentworth, through two of the high constables, had intimidated voters, The constables were
censured, but the election was not upset. At the election three years later, however, Sir John,
who had great influence in the clothing districts, secured his own return, and that of his son, Sir
Thomas Savile, and Wentworth had to be content with representing Pontefract, to which borough
the privilege of returning members had been restored in 1620, after a lapse of nearly 200 years.!°
On the dissolution of Parliament at the death of King James on 27 March 1625, Wentworth and
Sir Thomas Fairfax ousted the Saviles, but on evidence being brought that the sheriff had displayed
gross partiality, and had manipulated the poll to the disadvantage of Sir John, the election was
declared void. At the renewed election in August the same two candidates were returned, and
took their seats on 8 August,” but the Parliament was dissolved four days later. Wentworth, who
was then in opposition to the king, was appointed high sheriff, so as to prevent his standing for
Parliament, and soon afterwards the office of Custos Rotulorum was taken from him and given to
Sir John Savile.” King Charles at this time, unable to obtain funds through Parliament, was
endeavouring to raise money by forced loans, and Sir Thomas Wentworth, refusing to pay the sum
demanded of him in 1627, was committed to prison, while about the same time Savile was made
Comptroller of the Household. At the election early in 1628, however, Wentworth defeated Savile
and soon afterwards he became a strong supporter of the king. The two rivals received grants of

baronies on the same day, 21 July 1628, and shortly afterwards Wentworth became Lord President
of the North.”

8 Var. Coll. (Hist. MSS. Com.), ii, 106. * Thid. 103.
” Cal. .P. Dom. 1595-7, p. 165. ‘Ibid. ddd. 1580-1625, pp. 119, 126.
Ga. 1598-1601, p. 390. ee eres sat Coll. (Hist. MSS, Com.), ii, 93.

id. 101. ‘at. Border Papers, 1560-94, p. 282; A C. —8, p.
§ Whellan, Hist. of York, i, 207-9. sis , Tbia! fi ee me Tha as
® Cartwright, Chapters in the Hist. of Yorks. 198-212. 0 Thid. 21 3-14 ;
" Tbid. 220-6, # Ibid. 231-2. ® Ibid.

3 417 53

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

In the spring of 1633 King Charles visited Scotland, and on his way came to York, where on
24 May he was loyally received.4 Two years later, in 1635, his endeavours to raise money for
the navy without having recourse to a Parliament led to the levying of the unpopular ship-money.
Yorkshire was assessed to provide £12,000 ; of this the West Riding was assessed at £4,313 45-5
the North at £3,594 6s. 8d., and the East at £2,815 95. 4d., the city of York at £520, Leeds at
£200, Hull at £140, Doncaster at £100, and Pontefract, Beverley, Richmond, Ripon, Scarborough,
and Hedon at from {60 to £20.) It is worth noting that Leeds and Doncaster sent no represen-
tatives to Parliament, while Aldborough, Boroughbridge, and Thirsk, none of which were large
enough to be assessed separately, each had its two members. The unpopularity which Charles in-
curred by unconstitutional taxation was increased by his endeavours to force episcopacy upon his
Scottish subjects. It was, however, with every demonstration of loyalty that the king was received
when he entered York on 30 March 1639, and even the flattery of York was outdone by the
adulation of Hull when he visited that great port and arsenal.!® For about a month Charles
remained at York, endeavouring to reduce Scotland to obedience by means of proclamations, and
then he joined the forces on the northern border. This expedition fizzled out and came to nothing,
but the treaty of Berwick did not put an end to the differences between the king and the Covenanters,
and next year it became clear that a renewal of the war was inevitable. The king’s chief adviser
now was Lord Wentworth, who was created Earl of Strafford on 12 January 1640, but his advice
for an active, aggressive war was more easily given than carried out. Selby was the centre where
the troops were supposed to concentrate in July 1640, but money was lacking and the soldiers
mutinous, and such regiments as did arrive there were found by Sir Jacob Astley to be undisciplined
wastrels..7 On 28 July the gentry of York protested against the billeting of soldiers in their
houses as a breach of the Petition of Right. To this the king returned a sharp answer on
17 August, and two days later he ordered the trained bands of the northern and midland counties to
be called out, and summoned all tenants by knight service to attend him at York, to which city he
set out on 20 August.’ On that same day the Scottish army crossed the Tweed. The invasion
by the Scots, coupled with the presence of King Charles, induced the Yorkshire gentry to agree to
take up arms,” but meanwhile the Scots had occupied Newcastle and Durham, the northern division
of the English army had fallen back to Northallerton, and the Bishop of Durham had fled to Helmsley
Castle.2_ Moreover, by maintaining discipline and preventing all plundering Leslie had made the
inhabitants of those districts where the Scots lay compare them more than favourably with the
English troops.” During September the Scottish army lay on the northern borders of Yorkshire,
supporting itself by a levy on Durham and Northumberland, while Charles struggled to find some
way out of his difficulties. On 12 September the Yorkshire gentlemen had presented a petition for
the summoning of a Parliament ; Strafford, however, managed to get them to withdraw this petition
and to promise to pay their trained bands until the meeting of the Great Council on 24 September.”
Charles was in a hopeless position ; Lord Bristol put the facts very plainly to him; ‘ You see, sir,
how your kingdom’s hearts you have lost by your taxes and impositions, and that till you be
united to them by giving them their just satisfaction in all their grievances, you are no great king ;
for without the love and hearts of his people what can aking do?’ ‘There was no alternative
but to make terms with the Scots, and negotiations were accordingly begun at Ripon on 2 October.
A proposal to remove the seat of negotiations to York was refused, and the commission
continued to sit at Ripon until 26 October, when a cessation of arms was granted, the English
undertaking to pay £850 a day for the support of the Scottish army, who remained in possession
of the northern counties. These terms were confirmed by the Great Council on 28 October, and
two days later Charles left York for London,* where the Parliament, afterwards to be famous as
the Long Parliament, had been summoned for 3 November.

King Charles had no doubt been impressed with the wealth, strength, and loyalty of York
during his residence in the city in 1639 and 1640, and it was accordingly to York that he with-
drew in the spring of 1642, when his relations with the Parliament had become strained to breaking
point. On 18 March the court were welcomed at Tadcaster by the Sheriff of Yorkshire, Sir
Thomas Gore, and a large party of the county gentry, and on the same day they reached York,”
where they were received in state by the corporation, headed by the mayor, Edmund Cowper, upon
whom the king bestowed the honour of knighthood. The establishment of the court at York
marked the definite break between king and Parliament, and the next few months were occupied
by both sides in preparing for the armed struggle which was now inevitable, each party endeavouring

“ Whellan, Hist. of York, i, 216. * Cal. S.P. Dom. 1635, p- 479.

Ibid. 177. ® Tbid. 188. ” Ibid. 190.
: Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. iv, 523, as Ibid.

* Gardiner, op. cit. ix, 204. * Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. iv, 523.
* Gardiner, op. cit. ix, 214-15. * Cal. S.P. Dom. 1641-3, p. 342.

418

POLITICAL HISTORY

to secure adherents and to detach the supporters of its adversary. A month after the king’s
arrival the Marquess of Hertford came in with 800 horse, escorting the young Duke of York, whe
was received with loyal enthusiasm, and was admitted to the Order of the Garter on 19 April.
The importance of securing the great port of Hull had long been recognized, and as early as
January an effort had been made by the Royalists to place Sir Thomas Metham in command
there, but his local influence was small, and Captain Legge, to whom the business had been
entrusted, deemed it wiser to commit the care of the town to the burgesses. They showed their
independence by refusing to receive Sir John Hotham when first nominated by the Parliament, but
Legge had to warn the king that the proposed appointment of the Earl of Newcastle as governor
would be unpopular, and that it would be wiser for Charles either to come in person or to leave
the burgesses in control of their own affairs.® During the next three months the Parliamentary
party gained the ascendancy and Hotham was installed as governor. Charles now determined to
make sure of the town by going there in person, and on 23 April he rode to Hull with a large
body of horse. Upon reaching Hull he found the gate shut, and in response to his indignant
demand for admission, Sir John Hotham replied courteously, but firmly, that he had orders not to
allow the king or his troops to enter.” Furious at the affront to his authority, but impotent to
compel obedience, King Charles turned back to Beverley, and wrote to the Parliament demanding
satisfaction for the insult. Parliament, however, approved Hotham’s action, but doubting whether
he would be able to keep the town, proposed to withdraw the stores of ammunition lying there ; a
course against which the burgesses unsuccessfully protested.

After the Hull incident the king made fresh efforts to strengthen his party in Yorkshire, with
indifferent success, addresses protesting loyalty being countered by petitions urging the king to
come to terms with his Parliament. A great meeting of the county gentry was held at York on
12 May, but led to no definite result, as the feelings of the assembly were much divided, so Charles
took the decisive step of summoning the gentry to come to York in arms for his defence. Lord
Fairfax, Sir Thomas Stapleton, and Sir Hugh Cholmley, who had been sent down to York to act
as commissioners for the Parliament, and had received but a chilly welcome, remonstrated with the
king, who endeavoured to explain away his action by asserting that he had only asked for volun-
teers.2° The terms of his proclamation, however, did not bear him out, and it was significant that
he at the same time ordered Sir Robert Strickland’s regiment of foot to be mobilized. In answer to
his summons about 200 gentlemen came in; of these the king chose fifty to form his personal
guard, and the others, by the advice of some of his lords,*! he dismissed for the time being,*” though
preparations were made to form a body of horse of which Prince Charles was to be captain, with a
brother of Sir John Byron as lieutenant, and one of Sir Ingleby Daniel’s sons as cornet.*® ‘The
next move was to make a wider appeal, to test the sympathies of the yeomanry and lesser gentry,
and for this purpose a great meeting of the freeholders of the county was summoned. On 3 June
some 60,000 persons assembled on Heworth Moor, to which place came the king with his atten-
dant nobles, accompanied by a troop of 140 gentry with the young prince riding at their head, and
a foot guard of 800 men of the trained bands. Loyal shouts of welcome rang from all parts of the
field, but the meeting was far from unanimous in support of the king. Copies of a petition
decidedly adverse to his demands had been prepared, and Sir John Bourchier began to read one of
these to the assembly, who were testifying to their approval of its contents when Lord Savile rode
up, bade him desist, and forcibly snatched the paper from him. Sir John restrained the people from
expressing their indignation in acts, and Sir Thomas Fairfax, with much difficulty, forced his way
to the king and offered a copy of the petition to King Charles ; twice it was rejected, and then Sir
Thomas, placing the petition on the king’s saddle-bow, retired.** When the meeting broke up,
crowds of people went into the city to subscribe their signatures to copies of the petition to be sent
up to the Parliament. Although the feeling of the county was thus divided, York itself was ‘a
sanctuary to all those that despised the Parliament’; ** the king’s adherents were rapidly concen-
trating there ; the Great Seal had been brought down secretly, the Lord Keeper following and
narrowly escaping capture on the way, and towards the end of June Briot, the engraver of the
Mint, was ordered to bring his implements at once to York,*” and soon after this, no doubt, began
the conversion into coin of the plate generously sacrificed for their cause by the loyalists. Charles
endeavoured to counteract the ordinance of Parliament for embodying the militia by issuing com-
missions of array ; this course, which was first adopted on 11 June,®® afterwards led to the aliena-
tion of many of his supporters through the granting of commissions to Roman Catholics. Meanwhile

7 Cal. 8.P. Dom. 1641-3, 307. * Ibid. 253.

° Gardiner, op. cit. ix, 192-3. Cal. 8.P. Dom. 1641-3, p. 322

3 Thid. 1645-7) p. 424. " Hist, MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. ii, 316.
3 Ca. §.P. Dom. 1641-3, p. 330. * Yorks. Arch. Fourn. vii, 64-6.

% Ibid. 67. © Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. ii, 316,
3” Ca. SP. Dom. 1641-3, p. 344. *° Gardiner, Hist. of Engl. x, 202.

419

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

promises to raise and support some 2,000 horse had been received from leading Royalists, and hopes
were entertained that Sir John Hotham might be induced to surrender Hull.*? A plot was also
laid by Sir Charles Grantham to surprise Hull with the assistance of his son-in-law, Henry Brunker,
an officer of the garrison ; but Brunker’s assent to the scheme was only simulated, and he informed
Hotham of the plot.“ On § July the king with a small force of not much more than 1,000 men
advanced against Hull.! This force was too small, even when reinforced with siege artillery
brought up the Humber by two ships from Holland,” to carry the town, which had been put ina
good state of defence.*? Probably some reliance was placed on the Royalist sympathies of the
townsmen, which were giving Hotham such anxiety that he urged the Parliament to send down
Sir William Strickland, Sir Philip Stapleton, and Sir Hugh and Sir Henry Cholmley, to use their
local influence, adding, ‘if, while you sit voting, these others (i.e. the Royalists) be doing, you will
soon find but a bad issue.’ “# To hinder an assault on the town Hotham cut the dykes and flooded
the surrounding country, to the great indignation of those whose lands were drowned.** Finding
that Hull was not to be had for the asking, the king turned back to Beverley, leaving the Earl of
Lindsey to throw up batteries and dig entrenchments, in which operations he was not particularly
successful, as about 16 July Sir John Meldrum sallied out and destroyed a half-moon battery,
capturing the guns and taking Lord Fauconberg prisoner.4® About the same time Sir John
Hotham burnt the houses outside the Beverley gate of Hull, which might have afforded dangerous
cover to the attacking forces, and clapped the mayor into prison for refusing to assist in the defence
of the town.” Meanwhile Charles had paid a brief visit to Lincoln, and on his return on 16 July
reviewed his army, on which occasion the young Prince Charles was greatly admired as he rode, in
a suit of gilt armour, on ‘a very goodly white horse, trapped most richly to the ground with velvet
all studded with burning waves of gold.’*® The army reviewed can hardly have been an imposing
body, as on 25 July the royal forces in the county were estimated at less than 3,000 infantry of
the trained bands, and about 2,000 horse.*”

On 12 August 1642 King Charles issued from York the momentous declaration of his
intention to set up his standard at Nottingham on the 22nd, and summoned his subjects to take up
arms on his behalf. Within a few days orders were circulated in the various constabularies of
Yorkshire for all able-bodied men to assemble with their arms at Doncaster on 20 August.” But
it was easier to issue orders than to get them executed ; mobilization proceeded slowly, and it was
with only a small force that Charles set out for Nottingham, leaving behind him more officers eager
for service than troops for them to command.*! For about six weeks the county lay quiet, and
there were even suggestions for maintaining definite neutrality ;°? but the younger Hotham soon
put an end to this impracticable idea. Marching out of Hull on 4 October with 600 foot and
some horse he suddenly descended on the archbishop’s castle of Cawood ; most of the garrison
promptly deserted, and Captain Gray, the governor, only held out long enough to obtain terms.*?
The news of this exploit so alarmed Archbishop Williams that he fled incontinently to Wales,
taking with him, no doubt, his coach and six and his forty servants, all mounted on black horses,
with which he had proudly entered York in June. The Earl of Cumberland, the Royalist
commander-in-chief for Yorkshire, was too weak or too incapable to deal with young Hotham, who
rode into the West Riding raising troops and money, on one occasion taking from Leeds the contri-
bution which Sir Thomas Glemham, Governor of York, had been sent out to collect.° The
Parliamentary troops rode daily close to the walls of the city of York, and jeered at the defenders
with impunity ;°* beyond securing Pontefract and Knaresborough the Royalists could do nothing,
and when they did march out to attack Hotham at Cawood they were so alarmed at the sight of
a windmill and ‘certain stooks of beans,’ which they mistook for the opposing forces, that they
retired in haste.*7 About this time the Parliamentary cause received a further impetus by the active
participation of the Fairfaxes, who had hitherto remained quietly at home. Ferdinand, Lord
Fairfax, was nominated commander-in-chief, and his son, Sir Thomas, general of the horse. On
the other side the Royalists had summoned the Earl of Newcastle to their assistance. As early as
12 November Hotham, with Sir Christopher Wray and Thomas Hatcher, had marched up to
Topcliffe and on to Yarm and Northallerton to defend the northern frontier of the county against

* Gardiner considers that Hotham did actually intend to do so, but changed his mind. Op, cit. x, 212.

Gardiner, Hist. of the Great Civil War, i, 33. * Slingsby, Diary, 79.

4 Yorks. Arch. Fourn. vii, 73. * Slingsby, Diary, 78. * Ibid. 82-3.

*” Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, 67.
420

POLITICAL HISTORY

the earl’s advance, but it was not until 1 December that Newcastle, with some 8,000 men,
crossed the Tees at Pierce Bridge, after a sharp fight in which the superiority of the Royalist
artillery proved decisive.”

A little while before Newcastle’s arrival the Fairfaxes, after successfully repelling an attack on
Bradford, had taken up their quarters at Tadcaster with about a thousand men. To guard the
lines of communication with the West Riding, the chief source of the Parliamentary supplies, Sir
Thomas Fairfax was sent to Wetherby with 300 foot and 40 horse. Discipline was slack and no
proper guards had been set, ‘for in the beginning of the war men were as impatient of duty as
ignorant of it,’ and early one morning 800 Royalists were at the gates of the town before their
advance was discovered. Sir Thomas happened to have just mounted with the intention of riding
over to his father at Tadcaster ; he galloped up to his men’s quarters, and taking two serjeants and
two pikemen, the only men under arms, faced the enemy. Sir Thomas Glemham, the Royalist
commander, with several other officers charged the gallant little band, but after a sharp encounter,
in which Major Carr © was slain, drew off. By this time the Parliamentary troops had got under
arms and were coming up, so the Royalists retired.*! With the advent of the Earl of Newcastle,
to whom the Earl of Cumberland had reluctantly yielded up the command,” matters took a turn
less favourable to the Parliamentary forces. Sir Edward Loftus with all the Richmondshire troops,
and Sir Henry Anderson with the men of Cleveland and the North Riding, to the number of one
thousand, abandoned the struggle; Sir Hugh Cholmley drew off his 700 men from Stamford
Bridge ® to garrison Scarborough, and Colonel Boynton with another 800 was sent tostrengthen Hull.
The forces left with Fairfax amounted to twenty-one companies of foot, seven troops of horse, and
one of dragoons, and of these two companies of foot were stationed at Selby, one at Cawood, and
the rest partly at Wetherby under Captain Hotham and partly at Tadcaster under Lord Fairfax.“
Two days after his arrival in York, on 6 December, Newcastle marched out to attack Tadcaster.
Fairfax called Hotham to his aid and took up a position outside the town; but the Royalists, who
had a great superiority in numbers, forced him back into the town and even occupied some of the
houses, from which, however, they were driven out by Major-General Gifford. Fortunately for
Fairfax a strong party of horse who had been sent to take him in the rear went astray, and after
seven hours’ desperate fighting the Royalists drew off. ‘Taking advantage of the darkness the
Parliamentary forces withdrew to Selby, leaving Newcastle a clear passage to Pontefract. Over-
estimating the effect of their victory, the Royalists kept no watch on their opponents, and just a
week after the fight at Tadcaster, when the cavaliers quartered at Sherburn were feasting, Sir
Thomas Fairfax swooped down upon them, capturing a number of prisoners and carrying off their
best horses. Sir Thomas then took a small force to the support of Bradford. Here he lay
between hostile forces of 1,500 men in Leeds and 1,200 in Wakefield ; but Sir William Savile, who
had already suffered a check in an attempt to take Bradford, knew the Puritan sympathies of those
two towns, and did not dare to deplete his garrisons. In the middle of January 1643 Sir Thomas
obtained his father’s consent to ‘raise the country,’ and with a force of 1,200 men from Brad-
ford and the neighbouring constabularies marched against Leeds on 23 January. After two hours’
hot fighting the town was carried, Sir William Savile and some of his officers escaping by swimming
the river. As a result not only did a quantity of ammunition fall into the hands of Fairfax, but
Wakefield was evacuated by the Royalists, and the Earl of Newcastle retired from Pontefract to
York.®

Meanwhile Sir Hugh Cholmley, acting from Scarborough, had defeated the Earl of Newport
at Malton and, leaving a garrison there under Captain Bushell, had marched to Guisborough and
destroyed a Royalist force there, capturing Colonel Slingsby and over a hundred prisoners.” But
lack of money began to make itself seriously felt on the Parliamentary side,” Sir Hugh Cholmley’s
troops met with a sharp reverse at Yarm Bridge on 1 February,” and three weeks later, on the 22nd,
the queen landed with a considerable reinforcement of ammunition and money at Bridlington.
Early next morning tour ships of the Parliamentary fleet arrived and: opened fire on the queen’s
ships, many of the shot falling, by accident or design, on the house where the queen herself was
lodged. She was compelled to leave her lodging and seek refuge with her ladies behind some
rising ground, but displayed her usual courage, even insisting upon returning to rescue her lap-dog.’8

“s Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, 68. * Rushworth, Mem. ii (3), 77.
® If this is the Thomas Carr who was buried in York Minster (Yorks. Arch. Fourn. i, 231), the skirmish
at Wetherby must have taken place in the middle of November.

* Yorks. Arch. Fourn. viii, 208 ; Slingsby, Diary, 83. Slingsby, op. cit. 84.

°° Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x, App. vi, 90. “ Rushworth, Mem. ii (3), 91.

® Yorks. Arch. Fourn. viii, 208 ; Slingsby, op. cit. 85. % Slingsby op. cit. 87.

” Yorks. Arch. Fourn. i, 96. 8 bid. viii, 210. Thid.

” Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, go. ” Ibid. 90, 102 ; Rushworth, Mem. ii (3), 125.
” Life of Newcastle (ed. Firth), 34. ® Ibid. 35 ; Slingsby, Diary, 89.

421

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

After resting long enough to recover from the fatigue of her stormy passage, the queen set out
under Newcastle’s escort, and reached York on 5 March. Her arrival meant more than a mere
accession of arms and money to the Royalists. For some time a number of the Yorkshire gentry
who had taken up arms against the king had been growing dissatisfied with the progress of the war.
As early as 16 January Sir Hugh Cholmley, in a letter to Speaker Lenthall, had expressed his grief
at the continuance of the struggle, and had urged the House to come to terms with the king."
Just a week befure this Captain Hotham had written to the Earl of Newcastle, with whom he was
on better terms than with his own leaders, expressing the hope that neither side would be absolute
conquerors, ‘for it will be then as it was betwixt Caesar and Pompey, whosoever had the better the
Roman Liberty was sure to have the worse.’’® The queen, with her talent for intrigue, soon
began to use her personal influence to detach the waverers. After an interview with her at York
on 20 March, Sir Hugh Cholmley agreed to betray Scarborough, and on the 25th he informed the
garrison that they were to hold the castle for the king. The previous day he had sent Captain
Bushell to Hull to remove some of his property which was lying there ; but Hotham, suspecting
treachery, seized Bushell’s ship. Bushell, proving well-affected, was allowed to proceed to Scar-
borough, where with the assistance of his brother and the greater part of the garrison, who
disapproved Sir Hugh’s action, he recovered the castle from James Cholmley ; but upon the
return of Sir Hugh a day or two later the Bushells, with almost: all the troops, abandoned the
castle.” At the same time attempts were made to persuade the two Hothams to change sides, and
there seems even to have been an idea that Lord Fairfax might be influenced.” Captain Hotham,
a vain and quarrelsome man who was on bad terms with the Fairfaxes, was more than willing to
go over if any decent excuse could be found,’* and his father, Sir John, was so unfriendly towards
Lord Fairfax that at the end of March he withheld all assistance from the forces at Selby.” Find-
ing himself thus isolated, Fairfax determined to strike across to the friendly neighbourhood of
Leeds. This was a dangerous operation, as Newcastle’s army, vastly superior in numbers, lay
ready on Clifford Moor. On 29 March Lord Fairfax, with the main body of his army, set out
for Leeds, detaching a small force under Sir Thomas Fairfax to cover his flank. Sir Thomas
promptly struck at Tadcaster, and without much difficulty drove out the Royalist troops quartered
there. Newcastle, misled by this unexpected attack, sent Lord Goring with twenty troops of horse
to relieve Tadcaster. Sir Thomas, seeing the risk to which his infantry, mostly raw levies, would
be exposed in crossing Bramham Moor, sent the foot on ahead while he engaged the enemy in the
narrow lanes leading up from the Wharfe to the moor. Although having only three troops of
horse to Goring’s twenty, he kept them at bay long enough to allow the foot to cross the moor,
but owing to some mistake they had halted, and when his horse, retiring slowly, reached the moor
the foot were still where they had been left. The enemy, however, did not attack, and the
Parliamentary forces got safely across Bramham Moor, but coming up on to Seacroft Moor in some
disorder, the heat of the day and the opportunities of refreshment offered by the village of Potterton
having proved too much for them, they were caught on the flank and rear by the Royalists and
after a brief struggle completely routed with heavy loss.® Sir Thomas and some of the other
officers managed to cut their way through the enemy and rejoined Lord Fairfax at Leeds.
Although the losses incurred by Sir Thomas were very heavy his action undoubtedly saved the
main Parliamentary army from destruction.

The Parliamentarians now held Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, and Lord Savile’s fortified house at
Howley, but the Earl of Newcastle, following up his recent victory with another successful skirmish
on Tankerley Moor,® advanced against Leeds, and although unable to effect anything there
occupied Wakefield, and with little difficulty took Rotherham and Sheffield with its important
ironworks.® —Fairfax’s troops were growing restive for default of pay, and in addition the country
people were complaining that he had not obtained the release of the prisoners taken at Seacroft
Moor, but this he could not do, as he had no Royalist prisoners to exchange. At last he deter-
mined to take the offensive and attempt Wakefield, which was understood to be held by some 800
Royalists. On the night of Saturday, 20 May, a body of about 1,200 foot and horse under Sir
Thomas Fairfax met at Howley, and early next morning they reached Wakefield, where they
found that the Royalists were ready for them, and were far more numerous than they had
supposed, there being 3,000 foot and seven troops of horse under General Goring and Serjeant-
Major Mackworth. The Parliamentary foot, under General Gifford and the gallant Sir William
Fairfax, dashed forward and drove the enemy’s musketeers from behind their hedges and outworks
into the town, and after an hour and a half’s fighting seized the barricades at Wrengate and
Norgate, whereupon Sir Thomas charged in with his horse. The defence collapsed completely ;

‘* Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, 90. * Thid. 87.

© Rushworth, op. cit. ii (3), 265. 7 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, 105.
® Tbid. 105, 109, 701. ™ Markham, Life of Lord Fairfax, 195.

422

POLITICAL HISTORY

most of the horse galloped off to safety, but eighty officers, including General Goring himself, and
1,400 common soldiers were made prisoners, and a great store of ammunition, constituting New-
castle’s main magazine,®* fell into the hands of Fairfax.®! This victory, gained over greatly
superior numbers with the almost incredibly small loss of only seven men killed, had little real
effect on the tide of affairs in the north. Wakefield had to be abandoned at once, and although
Lord Fairfax was now able to exchange the Seacroft prisoners and to replenish his exhausted stores,
he recognized his precarious position, and urged the immediate dispatch of reinforcements, particu-
larly desiring the assistance of Colonel Cromwell.® Local jealousies, however, caused Yorkshire to
be left unrelieved,®* and on 20 June Newcastle, who had escorted the queen through Pontefract to
Newark, led his whole army into the West Riding and attacked Howley Hall. This strong house
had been garrisoned for the Parliament in January 1642, Sir John Savile of Lupset, a cousin of the
owner, Lord Savile, being made governor ; he now defended it with great gallantry for two days,
but on 22 June the place was stormed, and Sir John, whose life had been spared contrary to
Newcastle’s orders, taken prisoner.” For about a week Newcastle remained near Howley pre-
paring for an assault on Bradford. In view of the weakness of that town the Fairfaxes decided
that their only chance of success lay in a sudden attack on the Royalist army. Their own forces,
even with the addition of some troops recently arrived from Lancashire, amounted to barely 4,000
men, their opponents having some 10,000 and a great superiority in horse. ‘The attacking forces
were to leave Bradford at 4 o’clock in the morning on 29 June, but owing to the laxity, or worse,
of General Gifford they did not start until four hours later, and when they reached Adwalton
Moor they found the Royalists drawn up awaiting them. Lord Fairfax was commanding in chief,
with Sir Thomas on the right, Gifford on the left, and Colonel Forbes with the reserves. The
Parliamentary troops advanced with great dash, drove back the enemy’s infantry, and repelled two
charges of horse with heavy loss ; Newcastle was on the point of retreating when a brilliant charge
by some of his pikemen under Colonel Skirton, ‘a wild and desperate man,’ turned the fortunes of
the battle. The Puritan foot were thrown into confusion and were left unsupported by Gifford,
whose wing had just been charged on the flank and rear bya party of Royalist horse. The foot
were mostly raw levies, courageous in attack but lacking the discipline for an orderly retirement ;
the retreat speedily became a rout, and the greater part of the infantry were killed or captured ; the
remnant, with the horse of the left wing, got back to Bradford, followed by Lord Fairfax, who was
with difficulty persuaded to leave the stricken field. Sir Thomas with the right wing had held his
ground, and, finding that the enemy were between him and Bradford, retired to Halifax. The
Lancashire contingent went straight off from Halifax to their own county, but Sir Thomas with
such men as he could get together made for Bradford and rejoined his father. Their position
was hazardous ; Bradford was untenable, and there seemed to be no place to which they could
turn, as Sir John Hotham, the Governor of Hull, where was the only large Parliamentary garrison
in the county, had said that if they came there he would shut the gates against them. But now
a messenger arrived with news that the Hothams, whose disaffection had long been suspected, were
laid by the heels. The younger Hotham, after exasperating his fellow commanders at Nottingham,
had been arrested on 18 June but had escaped, first to Lincoln and then to Hull, where he was
plotting with his father to betray the town. Information of the plot reaching the mayor, Thomas
Raikes, he and Sir Matthew Boynton acted with great promptitude, and early on the morning of
the 29th, by their direction, 1,500 townsmen assembled under arms and seized the magazines,
ordnance, and the suspected officers. Sir John Hotham alone escaped, and he was taken at Beverley
the same day with Sir Edward Rhodes, Governor of Beverley, who was also plotting treason.®
The two Hothams were sent up to London, and suffered on the scaffold in January 1645. Mean-
while Hull was held by the townsmen under Sir Matthew Boynton, and it was now put at
the disposal of Lord Fairfax. He moved on first to Leeds, leaving Sir Thomas with 800 foot and
60 horse to hold Bradford. This, when Newcastle had planted his batteries on the high ground
overlooking the town, soon proved impossible ; and Sir Thomas, sending the foot round one way
under Colonel Rogers, led out his little body of horse, with his wife riding pillion behind one of the
soldiers, early in the morning. They soon encountered 300 of the enemy’s horse, on whom they
flung themselves gallantly ; Sir Thomas, General Gifford, Sir Henry Foulis, and a few others, cut
their way through ; but all the rest, including Lady Fairfax,® were taken prisoners. Sir Thomas
waited until he saw that he could render no assistance, and then rode off to Leeds. Here he was

% Life of Newcastle (ed. Firth), 43. * Yorks. Arch. Fourn. i, 101-5 ; viii, 212. % Thid. i, 103.
8 Gardiner, Hist. of the Great Civil War, i, 159. ” Life of Newcastle (ed. Firth), 45.
P © Hist MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, 717 ; Yorks. Arch. Fourn. viii, 213-14 ; Life of Newcastle (ed. Firth),
46-8,
® Rushworth, op. cit. ii (3), 276.
* She was sent back to her husband by the courteous Earl of Newcastle in his own coach with an escort
of horse.

423

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

joined by eighty of his foot, who had surprised a detachment of dragoons and captured their horses ;
unfortunately, through the cowardice of the officer commanding the rear, the greater part of the
foot had turned back into Bradford, where they surrendered next day.*! Within two hours of Sir
Thomas’s arrival a start was made for Hull, At Selby there was a sharp skirmish, in which Sir
Thomas Fairfax was severely wounded by a shot in the wrist, but in the end Hull was safely
reached.

With the exception of a few isolated posts, such as Wressell Castle, Hull was the only place
in the county that still held out for the Parliament, and Newcastle led his army into Lincolnshire,
satisfied that Yorkshire would give no more trouble. But the Fairfaxes were not the men to lie idle,
and their personal popularity made them the rallying point for all who were devoted to the Puritan
cause.” Sir Thomas soon moved out with the horse to Beverley, and in August drove the Royalists
out of Stamford Bridge, and so alarmed the garrison of York that they sent for Newcastle, who
about this date had been raised to the rank of marquess.* He returned at once, driving Sir Thomas
out of Beverley, and on 2 September began the siege of Hull. The season was wet, and Fairfax, by
cutting the river banks, had flooded a great part of the low ground, so that in many of their works
the Royalists were ankle-deep in mud and water, and those without seemed liker to rot than those
within to starve. The besieged, having command of the river, could keep up communications
with Lincolnshire, and on 26 September they were visited by Cromwell and Lord Willoughby, who
took back with them Sir Thomas Fairfax and his cavalry. At the end of September the Royalists
made several vigorous but unsuccessful attempts to capture various outworks, but the arrival of Sir
John Meldrum with 500 foot on 5 October put the besieged in a position to assume the offensive,
and after repelling a particularly vigorous attack, conducted by Captain Strickland, on g October,
the Parliamentary forces sallied in strength onthe 11th. A thousand men under Colonels Lambert
and Rainsborough, with Sir John Meldrum in chief command, drove the Royalists out of their
works and seized their guns, but were then driven back in confusion by a resolute charge of the
enemy’s pikemen. Lord Fairfax, shutting the gates against them, rallied his men, and they advanced
once more, this time to complete victory. The Royalist works were carried, their ordnance
captured and turned against them, and so severe a blow inflicted that the siege was raised.”

For three months Yorkshire was left in comparative peace, but in January 1644 news arrived
that the Scottish army had crossed the borders and were making for the town of Newcastle. ‘The
marquess at once hurried northwards, leaving Colonel John Bellasis in command at York. Hardly
had he gone when Sir Thomas Fairfax, by his brilliant victory at Nantwich on 28 January, was in
a position to send troops to recover the clothing towns of the West Riding. Colonel Bellasis, being
reinforced by Sir Charles Lucas, on his way north with a large body of horse, attempted to counter
this move by an attack on Bradford, but met with a sharp reverse at the hands of Colonel Lambert.”
The West Riding had now definitely returned to its old allegiance to the Parliament, and Lord
Fairfax was so secure in the East that he sent out Sir William Constable with the horse, who,
‘making their carrocols upon the wolds,’ recovered Whitby and troubled the district round Pickering.
Sir Charles Lucas rode out to look for him, but being unable to discover his whereabouts, quartered
at Coldham. That night the Royalists obtained the information required, for Sir William suddenly
swooped down on their quarters, cut up the regiments of Sir Walter Vavasour, Sir John Keys, and
Thomas Slingsby, and carried off a number of prisoners.” Not long after this Colonel Bellasis
intercepted a letter from Sir Thomas Fairfax to his father, expressing his intention of joining forces
with him and marching to the assistance of the Scots, who had made no progress in the north.
Bellasis attempted to prevent this by occupying Selby with 3,000 men ; but the junction was success-
fully effected, and on 11 April the united Parliamentary forces attacked Selby. The foot under Sir
John Meldrum forced the barricades, and Sir Thomas Fairfax entering the town with the horse
completed the defeat of the Royalists. Colonel Bellasis himself and 80 officers and 1,600 men
were taken prisoners.** The immediate result was to bring the Marquess of Newcastle south at
full speed to secure York. On his heels came the Scottish army under Lord Leven; marching
through Northallerton and Boroughbridge the Scots were met at Wetherby on 18 April by Sir
Thomas Fairfax, and at Doncaster next day by Lord Fairfax. The united Parliamentary forces
were now about 16,000 foot and 4,000 horse,” sufficient to besiege the city on two sides, the Scots
lying on the south and west at Bishopthorpe and Middlethorpe, and Fairfax’s army on the south and
east, and the circle was soon completed on the north by the arrival of 9,000 men under the Earl of

"| Yorks. Arch. Fourn. viii, 215. " Slingsby, Diary, 99.
* His patent was dated 27 October, but he was referred to as marquess on the 14th of that month
(Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, 138), and apparently received his title about the time of his return to

Yorkshire. Life of Newcastle (ed. Firth), 58. “ Life of Newcastle, 59.
* Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, 138 ; Markham, op. cit. 115-19. * Slingsby, Diary, 103.
" Ibid. 103-4. % Tbid. 105-6 ; Markham, op. cit. 137.

® Yorks. Arch. Fourn. viii, 220.

424

POLITICAL HISTORY

Manchester. Meanwhile Newcastle, to reduce the drain on his stores, had sent out the greater part
of his horse on 22 April to make their way to the king. This they did, though they lost some
sixty prisoners, and ‘war so hard chaisit that they war forcit to tak the cullouris from the standaris
and ryd away with, and leve the staf behind them.’ At the same time the marquess put both
troops and non-combatants on strict rations, the soldiers receiving ‘a mutchkin of beans, an unnce of
butar and a peny loaf’ daily, and an ordinance being issued that ‘everrie ane within the citie of
York sall have bott ane maill per diem.’ ? ;

During May the siege operations do not seem to have been pressed very vigorously, but towards
the end of the month the Parliamentarians captured Cawood Castle,’ and with the beginning of
June more active measures were employed against the city. On 5 June the Scots occupied some of
the suburbs, but next day the garrison sallied out and managed to set fire to the suburbs, and so
to destroy the houses.’ A week later, on 14 June, a meeting was held between the representatives of
the three Parliamentary generals and those of Newcastle, but the object of the Royalists proving to
be only the gaining of time for the expected advance by Prince Rupert, negotiations were broken
off. On 16 June a mine was fired by Major-General Crawford on the north side of the city,
bringing down St. Mary’s Tower and effecting an accessible breach. Unfortunately for the besiegers
Crawford was a vain and quarrelsome man, and, wishing to have all the glory of capturing York,
he had not warned Leven or Fairfax of his intentions ; they therefore made no diversion on other
parts of the city, and although Manchester’s troops gained a temporary footing at the Manor House,
where they slew Sir Philip Byron, the Royalists were able to concentrate against them, and they
were driven out with heavy losses.* Since the beginning of the month the advance of Prince Rupert
from Lancashire had been anxiously expected by all parties, and the Parliamentary Committee in
London had endeavoured to persuade the three generals to raise the siege and march against Rupert,
but this they had wisely refused todo.® Now, on 28 June, when the garrison of York were almost at
their last gasp, Rupert entered Yorkshire and advanced by Skipton and Denton to Knaresborough.
On 1 July, under cover of the darkness, the besieging armies drew off and took upa position on Marston
Moor, hoping to intercept Rupert’s advance; but he avoided them and reached York, where he
encamped for the night outside the walls.®

Councils of war were held in both camps. In the Parliamentary camp it was decided, by the
Earl of Leven’s advice, to retire southwards, and on 2 July the foot started to march to Tadcaster,
the horse, under Sir Thomas Fairfax, Oliver Cromwell, and David Leslie, remaining on the moor
to guard the rear. But meanwhile the impetuous Prince Rupert, putting his own interpretation on
an ambiguous letter from King Charles, had overruled the more cautious counsels of Newcastle and
had committed his party to a pursuit and attack. An urgent message from Sir Thomas Fairfax
brought the Parliamentary foot back on to Marston Moor, where, on the ridge between Tockwith
and Long Marston, Lord Leven drew up his army. In the centre he placed four of his own
Scottish regiments under General Baillie, with three more in reserve under General Lumsdaine.
On their left were the Earl of Manchester’s foot under Crawford, flanked by 4,000 horse under
Oliver Cromwell and David Leslie. The right wing, commanded by Lord Fairfax, consisted of
three regiments of foot under Sir William Fairfax, with Colonels Bright, Needham, and Forbes,
with two Scottish regiments in reserve, flanked by the Yorkshire horse under Sir Thomas Fairfax
and Colonel Lambert, supported by three regiments of Scottish horse. About a quarter of a mile
north of the Parliamentary lines ran a broad ditch, held by the Royalist musketeers. Immediately
behind this Prince Rupert had formed up such foot as he had with him, intending to attack the
enemy, although they were superior in numbers, as soon as the rest of his troops came up. But
there was considerable delay in their arrival, many of Newcastle’s party being opposed to the idea of
fighting, and part of the troops being mutinous for lack of pay. It was past six o’clock when the
expected reinforcements under Lord Eythin arrived, and that cautious veteran would not hear of an
attack at that late hour; he also rebuked Rupert for forming so close to the enemy. It was,
however, too late to withdraw, and the Royalist forces took up their positions. In the centre, where
Lord Eythin was in command, were Newcastle’s foot under General Porter; on their right came
Rupert’s foot under Colonel O’Neil, flanked by 5,000 horse under Rupert with Lord Byron and
Lord Grandison. The Royalist left consisted of Newcastle’s own Northumbrian regiment, known
as the White Coats, from their uniform of undyed cloth, which they had vowed to dye in the blood
of their enemies ; flanking these were 5,000 horse under Goring and Sir Charles Lucas.

A little before seven the conference of the Royalist generals broke up; Rupert, expressing his
intention of attacking early next morning, dismounted and settled down to his supper; Newcastle
went off to his coach to smoke, and throughout the lines there was a general slackening of tension.

109 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x, App. i, 53.

1 Thid. ? Cal. S.P. Dom. 1644, p. 176. ® Markham, op. cit. 146.

* Yorks. Arch, Fourn, viii, 220 ; Slingsby, Diary, 109, ® Cal. 8.P, Dom, 1644, pp. 206-7,
® Gardiner, Hist, of the Great Civil War, i, 372.

3 425 54

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The Parliamentary leaders were quick to see their chance, and suddenly horse and foot surged
forward to the attack. Crawford dashed across the ditch and caught the Royalist right wing on the
flank ; Baillie’s Scots followed, driving back the main body of the enemy’s foot, and Sir William
Fairfax carried the ditch and hedge on his front. On the left Leslie and Cromwell shattered the
first line of the opposing horse: for a moment Rupert’s own troops checked the Parliamentary
charge ; Cromwell, slightly wounded in the neck, halted and even began to draw back, when David
Leslie saved the situation by a dashing flank charge, which sent the Royalists flying in disorder down
the road to York. Crawford’s foot were equally successful in driving back O’Neil’s forces, but on
the right matters were going badly for Lord Fairfax and the Yorkshire Puritans. The ground on
this side was broken and covered with furze and other obstacles, so that it was with difficulty that Sir
Thomas Fairfax managed to bring his men to the charge. Moreover, Sir William Urry had inter-
spersed amongst his troops of horse bodies of musketeers, whose fire caused great loss to the attacking
party. After a desperate struggle Sir Thomas, whose cheek had been laid open by a sabre cut,
routed the troop immediately opposed to his own; leaving his men to pursue them, he returned by
himself to bring up the rest of his cavalry, only to find that Goring had charged them and that they
had fled in disorder, Eglinton’s regiment of horse alone standing their ground. In their flight they
scattered their own foot, including the reserves, and, finding that his troop had melted away, old
Lord Fairfax hurried after them to Tadcaster, believing all was lost. While the left wing of each
army had thus scored a great success the issue in the centre still hung in the balance. Still struggling
with the Royalist centre Baillie’s Scots were now attacked on the flank by the foot of the victorious
left wing and the body of horse under Sir Charles Lucas. Several regiments broke and fled, and
Lord Leven, after vainly trying to rally them, gave up all for lost and rode off to Wetherby ; but
Baillie with the regiments of Lord Lindsay and Lord Maitland (commanded by Colonel Pitscottie)
held out grimly, and Lumsdaine brought up another regiment to his aid. And now the fortunes of
war were changed by the difference of discipline in the two armies. Goring’s victorious cavalry,
having driven their adversaries off the field, turned to plundering, but on the Parliamentary left
Leslie and Cromwell had kept their men well in hand and were waiting for news. ‘This they soon
received, for Sir Thomas Fairfax, finding himself alone on his wing, took out of his hat the distinguish-
ing white favour and, riding through the Royalist forces as if he had been one of their own officers,
reached the left wing. As soon as they knew the state of affairs, Cromwell led his men across the
field, and wheeling round met and cut to pieces Goring’s cavalry as they returned in disorder,
Crawford brought up his victorious infantry to the help of Baillie, and Leslie attacked the White
Coats. The Royalist rout was complete ; the whole army broke and fled towards York, except the
gallant White Coats, who refused either to fly or to surrender, and after making a magnificent stand
in White Syke Close were cut down almost to a man.’

In the battle of Marston Moor 4,000 Royalists were slain and 1,500 taken prisoners ; twenty-
five pieces of ordnance were captured, besides quantities of arms and ammunition, and colours
enough ‘to make surplices for all the cathedrals in England, were they white.’ Amongst the
prisoners were Generals Goring, Porter, and Tilyard, and Sir Charles Lucas. On the Parliamentary
side also the losses had been heavy, including Charles Fairfax, younger brother of Sir Thomas ; but
the victory was decisive. The Marquess of Newcastle and Lord Eythin abandoned the struggle and
rode off to Scarborough, whence they sailed, with a number of other officers, for Hamburg next day.
Rupert, with the remains of his horse and a small body of foot, made for Lancashire, leaving Sir
Thomas Glemham to hold York as best he might. The siege of the city was resumed two days
after the battle, on 4 July, and ten days later Glemham, whose position was hopeless, offered to
capitulate. Very good terms were granted ; the garrison marched out with the honours of war on
16 July and were conducted under escort to Skipton, where there was a Royalist garrison.8 Lord
Fairfax became Governor of York and Thomas Hoyle was elected mayor in place of Sir Edmund
Cowper, who had been maintained in office by Newcastle in despite of the corporation’s protests
since January 1642.°

After the surrender of York, the county being entirely in the hands of the Parliament except
for a number of isolated castles, the Scottish army, after a brief stay at Leeds, marched to Newcastle,
while the Earl of Manchester moved southwards, halting at Doncaster on 23 July. The earl, who
had so far served the Parliament faithfully, now began to show signs of slackness. He did not wish
to see the king unthroned, he had no belief in the permanence of any settlement by force, and wished
for a compromise and agreement. He, therefore, was not anxious to pursue his recent successes, and
declined to move against Newark ; although he detached General Crawford to attack Sheffield Castle,
he left him without ordnance,” and it was not until Lord Fairfax sent some artillery under Colonel

" Gardiner, Hist, of the Great Civil War, i, 373-82; Markham, op. cit. 153-78, and authorities
there quoted.

® Slingsby, Diary, 115-16, 123. * Yorks. Arch. Fourn. v, 53-62.

” Cal. S.P. Dom. 1644, p. 423. " Tbid. 1644~5, p. 152.

426

POLITICAL HISTORY

Bright that the castle surrendered, on 11 August.’? While Manchester was at Doncaster, Colonel
John Lilburne, by Cromwell’s orders, quartered with four troops of dragoons in Tickhill. The
castle here was held for the king by Colonel Monckton, but the garrison were in a state of mutiny 5
and informed Lilburne that they would make no resistance to an assault, and the governor himself
expressed his willingness to surrender if summoned. Manchester forbade Lilburne to take any action,
and was angry when he found that, by Ireton’s advice, he had summoned the castle and received its
surrender.’ In August Lord Fairfax invested Knaresborough, Scarborough, and Pontefract, and
detached a strong force under Sir Thomas to operate against Helmsley Castle,14 During the
siege of Helmsley, which was gallantly defended by Sir Jordan Crosland, Sir Thomas Fairfax was
severely wounded by a musket ball,!° while just about the same time, on 18 September, his gallant
cousin, Sir William Fairfax, was mortally wounded in action at Montgomery. Helmsley
surrendered on 22 November, and Knaresborough shortly afterwards. On the other hand Sir John
Maney with some 2,000 horse came out of Lancashire on 10 September, and turning southwards from
Skipton surprised a newly-raised troop of Parliamentary horse at Bradford and relieved Pontefract,
driving off the investing force under Colonel Sands with considerable loss.”

For some time Lord Fairfax had been complaining of a lack of funds ; on 20 September he had
to warn the Committee that his army would break up and disband if money were not soon forth-
coming.!® In November he requested Lord Montgomery not to quarter his troops round North-
allerton and Thirsk, as that district had had to bear the charges of the force employed against
Helmsley,” and about the same time he wrote to the Committee suggesting that three regiments of
Scottish horse, whose presence in Cleveland was causing great expense, should be used against
Newark, the only considerable garrison remaining in the north. He also proposed to reduce the
Yorkshire horse by 2,000, ‘ the charge of them being insupportable to this almost ruined country.’”

So far as Yorkshire was concerned interest now centred round Pontefract and Scarborough.
On Christmas Day 1644 Fairfax’s troops occupied the town of Pontefract and began the siege of the
castle, a place of great strength, ably defended by Sir Richard Lowther." Colonel Forbes was in
charge of the siege operations, and after a heavy cannonade succeeded in battering down the Piper
tower and effecting a breach in the walls ; but the breach not proving sufficiently open, and efforts to
mine the walls being met by vigorous countermining, nothing was effected. In February 1645 Sir
Thomas Fairfax was ordered up to London to assume the command of the New Model Army, the
great force destined in his hands to place the supremacy of the Parliament beyond question, and his
place in Yorkshire was taken by Colonel Lambert, who himself took charge of the operations at
Pontefract. Early in February a small body of men, including Mr. Corker, a clergyman, got safely
away from the castle, and as a result of Mr. Corker’s representations Sir Marmaduke Langdale was
dispatched to relieve the castle. On the last day of February news arrived of Langdale’s approach ;
the siege was raised and the Parliamentary forces fell back to Ferrybridge, where a sharp engage-
ment ensued next day in which Langdale, with the help of the garrison, gained a decisive victory,
taking a number of prisoners and a quantity of arms. Sir John Savile, who had been besieging
Sandal Castle and had received orders to march to Ferrybridge too late to be of use, fell back on
Bradford, cutting up some Royalist horse under Colonel Carnaby at Houghton on his way.”” The
check to the Parliamentary cause was slight. On 21 March the siege of Pontefract was recom-
menced. ‘The cavaliers defended the castle gallantly, and were not content to remain on the
defensive, but inflicted heavy losses on the besiegers by constant vigorous sallies. They also contrived
to keep up communications with the beleaguered garrison of Sandal, and on 27 May a party of fifty
horse from Sandal actually made their way through the Parliamentary lines and brought nearly a
hundred head of cattle into the castle”? A few days previous to this the Royalist garrison of
Scarborough had scored a still greater success, a sally in force inflicting heavy losses in men and guns
on the Parliamentary troops, Sir John Meldrum, who was in command of the siege operations, receiving
wounds from which he died shortly afterwards. From the beginning of June, when General
Poyntz took control of the siege operations at Pontefract, the garrison there began to feel their
enemy’s grip tightening. The complete defeat of the king at Naseby on 14 June deprived them
of all chance of relief, and although they kept up their spirits by disseminating reports of imaginary

” Cal. S.P. Dom. 1644, p. 423.

8 Ibid. 1644-5, pp. 148-9, 152. “ Tbid. 1644, p. 447.

® Markham, op. cit. 183. Ibid. 184.

Y Slingsby, Diary, 131 ; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1644, p. 520

8 Cal. 8.P. Dom. 1644, p. 524. ® Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x, App. i, 54.

” Cal. 8.P. Dom. 1644-5, p. 104.

"1 The sieges of Pontefract Castle are given in great detail from the journals of Nathan Drake and other
contemporary sources in Sart. Soc. Publ. no. 37.

7 Drake, Siege of Pontefract Castle (Surt. Soc. 37), 17.

® Ibid. 47. * Cal. 8.P. Dom. 1644-5, pp. 523, 527.

427

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Royalist victories, which were signalled between Pontefract and Sandal by means of beacon fires,
their surrender was only a matter of time. At last, on 21 July, the castle and alt its munitions were
given up and the brave defenders marched out to join their friends at Newark. So important was
this success considered that the House of Commons ordered a thanksgiving therefor on the Sunday
after the receipt of the news. Within a week of the fall of Pontefract, Scarborough surrendered to
Sir Mathew Boynton,” who was at once appointed governor. The governorship of Pontefract had
been given to Sir Thomas Fairfax, but as he was too busy elsewhere with his command of the new
army the office had to be exercised by deputy. Bolton, Skipton, and Sandal still held out, and in
the middle of August the Parliamentary horse, both at Skipton and at Doncaster, were in a state of
mutiny owing to the failure of the authorities to provide their pay.” At Doncaster they even placed
General Poyntz under arrest and threatened to plunder York if a month’s pay were not forthcoming.
The king took advantage of this state of affairs to offer a pardon to all persons in Yorkshire who
would return to their allegiance,®° and the Royalists designed to march on Doncaster and so towards
Ripon, where there were no Parliamentary garrisons.*! But the Parliamentary eclipse was of short
duration ; on 2 October Sandal Castle surrendered,*®? and a fortnight later, on 15 October, Lord
Digby, the king's secretary, with 1,500 Royalist horse, was completely defeated at Sherburn, his
coach, containing much compromising correspondence, being captured.** So many prisoners were
brought into York after this battle that some fears were expressed for the safety of the city. On
5 November Colonel Scrope yielded the castle of Bolton to Colonel Lascelles,* and the surrender of
Skipton Castle on 22 December left the Parliament supreme in Yorkshire.

During 1646 and 1647 the county had peace, except for the plundering and the misbehaviour
of the Scottish troops quartered round Tickhill and elsewhere.** They were said to cost the county
something like £90,000 a month,*” and the presence in their ranks of ‘ reformadoes,’ men who had
formerly served in the Royalist armies and were still Royalist in sympathies though drawing pay in
the service of the Parliament, increased the tendency to disorder and outrage.*® On 16 March 1648
the old Lord Fairfax died at Denton, and his son Sir Thomas succeeded to the title. About this
time the Royalists renewed the struggle in the north, encouraged by Charles’s negotiations with the
Scots. Colonel John Morris, a brilliant young officer who had served under the Earl of Strafford,
had joined the Parliamentary army out of pique, and had been passed over, owing to the licence of
his life, at the remodelling of the army, had for some time been plotting to seize Pontefract Castle
for the king.2® With this end in view he had contrived to become very intimate with Captain
Cotterell, the strict and unpopular governor of the castle, who at last came to put complete confidence
in him. Meanwhile Morris had enrolled a body of old and trusty cavaliers in and around Pontefract
to seize the castle when the time came. A first attempt was made in the middle of May 1648 ; but,
owing to the corporal who should have been on guard at the part of the walls which was to be
scaled having got drunk, another sentinel was on duty, and he at once gave the alarm. The
Royalists rode off, leaving their ladders planted against the walls. Captain Cotterell decided that
his soldiers who had been quartered in the town should in future lodge in the castle; for their
accommodation beds had to be provided, and orders were given for these to be brought on 3 June.
On that day Morris and Captain William Paulden with nine confederates, all disguised as countrymen,
came to the gates of the castle with the beds, and on being admitted sent part of the guard off to get
drink ; the rest of the guard they drove into a large underground dungeon. ‘The drawbridge was
swung up and Captain William Paulden going to the governor’s room found him lying down ; he
defended himself gallantly, but was overpowered. Then Captain Thomas Paulden brought in about
thirty horse to help hold the place, and in a few days the Royalists from all round flocked to
Pontefract, so that the garrison numbered 500 men. ‘There was good store of ammunition in the
castle, and provisions were rapidly brought in, one particular raid to Knottingley resulting in the
capture of 300 head of cattle. So rapidly did the cavaliers come in that by the end of June they
had assumed the offensive and had sent out a large party to plunder the Isle of Axholme and the
neighbourhood of Lincoln. On their way back these forces were caught, on 5 July, by Colonel
Rossiter at Willoughby Field and completely defeated, Sir Philip Monkton, who was in command,
being taken, with about 60 officers and gentlemen and nearly 500 troopers. When first the castle
was seized the Parliament endeavoured to bribe Morris to surrender it, offering him £2,000,"° but

ss Drake, Siege of Pontefract Castle, ut sup. 82. * Cal. $.P. Dom. 1645-7, p. 27.
. Drake, loc. cit. * Thid. * Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, 240, 252-4.
Cal. S.P. Dom. 1645-7, p. 74. 3 Ibid. p. 71.

* Drake, Siege of Pontefract Castle (Surt. Soc.), 83.

* Cal. S.P. Dom. 1645-7, pp. 203, 216-17.

eB Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, 294. * Ibid. 304.

: ae 340, 3571 367. eke 7 Ibid. 365. ® Ibid. 357-8, 365.
or the account of the surprise and third siege of Pontefract Castl Surt. Soc. no. . 84-116.

“ Cal. SP. Dom. 1646-9, p. 118. : Re eres ane PB

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POLITICAL HISTORY

now they dispatched 5,000 troops under Sir Edward Rhodes and Sir Henry Cholmley to besiege the

place. The Royalists, however, still managed to retain not only the castle on also aig on
New Hall, and when, after the defeat of the Scottish army under Hamilton at Preston : Ran ne
Cromwell called off the greater part of the containing forces to pursue the aa ‘ - ecieke
garrison proved a thorn in the side of the local Parliamentarians. Cholmley’s ce 2 fait ace
proving so unsuccessful, Colonel Rainsborough was ordered to take sani ibe vies ae ae
October, but Cholmley refused to be superseded and Rainsborough remaine ie Nich
Doncaster. In the defeat at Preston Sir Marmaduke Langdale, who had commande : the : as
contingent, was captured and brought to Nottingham, and it was rumoured that he was to

' ; : i d hit upon the daring plan of
executed. The Pontefract cavaliers determined to effect his rescue ant Pp abacina
seizing Rainsborough and exchanging him for Langdale. At midnight on ah pe er aa
William Paulden with twenty-two men, well mounted, slipped out of the cast le, an ees -
morning reached Mexborough, 4 miles from Doncaster. Here they halted, sending a spy into fhe
town. Early in the morning of 29 October they entered Doncaster in four divisions, ase 5
unsuspecting guards ; four of the cavaliers rode on to Rainsborough’s lodgings, where they ee e
that they had brought a letter from Cromwell. They were taken up to his bedroom and at once
informed him that he was their prisoner. On coming into the street he saw how few his captors
were, and calling on his lieutenant, who had been disarmed, began to struggle and managed to get
one of his enemies’ swords. In the confusion that ensued Rainsborough was killed, and the cavaliers
rode off to Pontefract unharmed but unsuccessful in their main intention. _As a matter of fact
Langdale had escaped the previous night, so that their failure did not affect him, but the fury with
which the attempt inspired the Parliament, and in particular Cromwell, ultimately cost Morris his
life. Cholmley was now in disgrace and the siege operations were conducted by Cromwell himself,
who on 9 November summoned the castle and, when Morris refused to yield, drove the Royalists
out of New Hall, completed the lines of circumvallation and ordered up more troops and artillery.

Meanwhile Colonel Matthew Boynton, Governor of Scarborough, discontented at being kept
without money, had declared for the king in August, and Scarborough, as well as Pontefract, was
undergoing a siege. Scarborough surrendered to Colonel Bethel on 19 December, but Pontefract
remained unreduced, and when King Charles was beheaded on 30 January 1649 the garrison
proclaimed King Charles II and struck coin, minted from plate, in his name. At last, on 3 March,
the garrison condescended to make overtures for surrender, but General Lambert, much against his
will, had to inform them that six persons were excepted from mercy, and sooner than abandon any
of their number they vowed all todie together. At last, on 17 March, the names of the six persons
excepted were given, being Morris, the governor, two officers concerned in Rainsborough’s death,
and three who had betrayed the castle; Lambert further agreed that they might escape if they
could, and that if they got 5 miles from the castle they should be free. A sally was made in
which Morris and Blackburne got safely through the enemy’s lines, one of the others was killed and
the other three were forced back into the castle where they were hidden by being walled up ina
secret chamber and so escaped discovery when the castle was surrendered on 22 March. Morris
and Blackburne were arrested ten days after their escape, in Lancashire, condemned to death at the
York Assizes in August, and executed on 23 August, after an attempt at escape in which Morris
could have succeeded if he had not refused to abandon his companion, who fell and broke his leg.
Before they suffered, the castle which they had so gallantly defended had ceased to exist. Orders
had also been given in July 1649 for the demolition of Scarborough Castle,*! but they were not
carried out, and were repeated in May 1651,” only to be referred back again next month.

The capture of Pontefract marked the end of the Civil War in Yorkshire, though it naturally
took time for the county to settle down. There were riots at York during the summer and
autumn of 1649 by soldiers whose pay was overdue. During 1650 Scottish affairs gave cause
for anxiety, and on 20 September orders were given to raise a full regiment of 1,200 militia in the
county ; * this business hung fire and does not seem to have been completed till a year later.*®
An alarm that Middleham Castle was to be seized was raised as late as 1655,” but the plot, if plot
there was, came to nothing and the land had rest until the death of Cromwell in 16 58.

Soon after the death of Oliver Cromwell the royalist reaction began to make itself openly
felt in Yorkshire as in other districts. Lord Fairfax, the most prominent personage in the county,
was known to be favourable to the restoration of the monarchy, and seems to have been cognizant
a = George Booth’s conspiracy in 1659 and to have been in communication with General

onk.

On 3 January 1660 Fairfax went to Marston Moor with some levies to meet, by invitation,

ate 8.P. Dom. 1649-50, p. 230. a. ae oe p- 188.

id. 145. 1d. 1049-50, pp. 237, 299.

“ Tbid. 1650, p. 348. “ Ibid. 1651, pp. 88, 354, 7

Ibid. 1655, p. 181, “ Drake, Eoracum (publ. Lond. 1736), 173.

429

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

a portion of Lambert’s army. There was no battle. Lambert’s soldiers rushed to their old
leader and York was won for Royalists. Monk arrived at York on the 11th and left for London
on the 15th.4® The Restoration in Yorkshire was chiefly the work of Fairfax who, on 18 May,
formed one of the party sent over to the Hague to invite Charles to return.

On 11 May Charles II was proclaimed at York amid great enthusiasm, and on 29 May he
rode into London on a horse—‘ Nun Appleton ’—given him by Fairfax.

Yet the old Puritanical sentiment was active, and the deputy lieutenants received orders to
make a general search for arms and to inquire into people’s principles, and how they stood assured
to the Government.”

In 1662 the Duke of Buckingham was sent to his lieutenancy of the West Riding, there to
raise the militia to oppose a rebellion ready to break out in those parts.*' The parties concerned
in this design were some officers of the late Parliamentary army and some persons dissatisfied at
losing their Crown and Church lands by the king’s return. The disaffected met at Farnley Wood
near Pontefract, but finding little support they dispersed. About twenty-one persons were arrested
for taking part in the sedition and were all found guilty of high treason by a special commission
brought down to York for the purpose, fifteen *? of them being executed next January, including
Rymer and Oates, the leaders, men of substantial property.

In 1665 James, Duke of York, and brother of Charles, spent two months in York while the
plague raged in London and was received with full civic pomp and circumstance." When he
visited the city, fourteen years later, having in the meantime publicly embraced Roman Catholicism,
he was but coldly welcomed, much to his displeasure, which had serious consequences for the city
afterwards.** Disaffection was not yet dead, for next year it was thought advisable to quarter
troops at Leeds, and in the following year when the king wished to borrow money on the security
of a land tax voted by Parliament he could not get any in Yorkshire.

On the dissolution of the Cabal Ministry in 1673, a famous Yorkshireman, Sir Thomas
Osborne, rose to be Lord High Treasurer of England and Earl of Danby. He succeeded his
patron, the Duke of Buckingham, as Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding on the disgrace and
impeachment of the duke in 1674 for his intrigue with Lady Shrewsbury.”

The Hallamshire corporation of cutlers resisted the levying of hearth-money on their furnaces,
which were exempt as being ‘ blowing-houses,’ and for a time their claims were recognized.

The Popish Plot excitement extended to York, and rour persons were brought to trial in 1680
for alleged complicity therein. Only one was found guilty, ‘a priest, being more his guilt than the
plot.’ *’ At the same assizes a petition was offered to the grand jury from some of the anti-court
party, in the name of the whole county, for the sitting of Parliament. One of the grand jury
tore the petition in pieces, and next day a counter petition was drawn up and signed, expressing
abhorrence of such proceedings, ‘the King being the only fit judge when Parliament ought to sit.’
When the Commons met, the ‘abhorrers’ were voted betrayers of the liberties of the people, and
abettors of arbitrary power, and two members for Yorkshire who had signed the abhorrence were
convened before the committee.

Sir John Reresby was appointed Governor of York in 1682, and noted that the ‘ loyal party
in York is much inferior to the factious.”® Next year the new governor was busy searching for
persons implicated in the Rye House Plot. Several Scotch ‘petty chapmen’ or pedlars were
arrested as being emissaries of the conspirators, and several gentry suspected of disaffection were
disarmed.

The city of York, with many other corporate municipalities, suffered the loss of its charter
under writ of quo warranto in 1684, ‘as being remarkable for height of faction.’ ® The notorious
Jettreys came to the city on circuit and promised to speak to the king on behalf of the citizens.
Next year the town of Doncaster yielded up its charter into the king’s hands.

In February 1685 Charles II died, but the exclusionists remained quiet and James II was
proclaimed in due course. A new charter duly arrived in August, but the temper of the citizens,
and indeed of the whole county, was gradually aroused by James’s actions. In 1687 nineteen
gentlemen of the West Riding were put out of the commission of the peace and ten Papists put in
their room,™ while the king granted the manor of York for thirty years to ‘one Mr. Lawson a

® Drake, Eboracum (publ. Lond. 1736), 173.

* Sir F. Reresby’s Memoirs (ed. Cartwright), 54. 5! Tbid. 58.

*? Drake says twenty-one, and gives names (op. cit. 175) and details.

5S Reresby’s Memoirs, ut sup. 64. * Tbid. 180,

* Ibid. 88. * Ibid. 93.

7 Tbid. 186. * Ibid. 187.

* Ibid. 280-3. * Ibid. 264, 302.
§ Ibid. 341. * Thid. 368.

430

S1ece Money anp Mepats

1-3 Money coined during the siege of Pontefract Castle ; the type No, 3 being struck inthe name of Charles II, 4 and § Pieces of

plate stamped to pass as money at Scarborough. 6 Medal of Ferdinand, Lord Fairfax. 7 Medal of Sir Thomas Fairfax, to commemorate

Marston Moor. 8 Medal strack in memory of Sir John Hotham,

POLITICAL HISTORY

priest,’ ® and Sir J. Reresby’s protest was unavailing. A ‘ Papist judge > came down on circuit, but
only few of the gentry turned out to meet him and he received a cold welcome from them.

Next year the king granted the Lord Lieutenancy of the West Riding to Lord Thomas
Howard, ‘a zealous Papist.’®* In April the West Riding justices met at Pontefract and an address
to his Majesty thanking him for the Declaration of Indulgence was signed only by six Papists and
two others, the remaining sixteen justices refusing to sign. ‘The justices of the East and North
Ridings had been ‘ examined as to their disposition of taking away the Test and penal laws, and the
prime of the gentry in both had been put out of commission . . . for declaring themselves in the
negative, and ordinary persons, both as to quality and estates (most of them Dissenters), had been
put in their room.’ The feeling of the country found expression at York, as elsewhere, in public
rejoicing at the acquittal of the seven bishops. Early in October a messenger came to ° purge
the corporation and put in others, almost all Papists, ‘but it was so lame by mistakes in the
execution of it that it could not be done.’ The king, too late, tried to retrieve his error, and began
to restore the displaced justices ® and the old charters, and named the Duke of Newcastle as Lord
Lieutenant of the whole county. But the Earl of Danby was very active, though in secret,
organizing the rapidly-growing discontent to prepare for the coming change. In view of the popular
agitation troops were called to York and the militia was called out. The crisis came when a
new commission of the peace arrived, omitting some thirty principal gentry of the West Riding.
A meeting was held in November to demand a free Parliament. A feigned alarm was raised
that the Papists had risen. The Earl of Danby and others took advantage of the excitement to
ride up to the militia who all cried out for ‘a free Parliament, the Protestant Religion, and no
Popery.” The revolutionary party thereupon seized the city and Sir J. Reresby the governor was
made a not unwilling prisoner and sent home on parole. Next month Kingston-upon-Hull also
declared for the Prince of Orange and the Protestant Religion, and there was an anti-Popery riot
in York in which many houses were looted and chapels desecrated. On the whole, however, the
change took place quietly, ‘ few robberies or felonies and not one murder in the West Riding.’ ”

On 17 February 1689 William III and Mary were duly proclaimed at York amid scenes of
enthusiasm. The change of government took place very quietly, the only outburst being the
attack upon Roman Catholic houses and chapels in York itself, already mentioned. For over
a century there is little to record in the way of political history in Yorkshire, for the chief interest
in politics is now transferred from domestic and constitutional to foreign and colonial affairs. The
leading thread of home affairs is the economic development which in its turn brought about the
great political changes embodied in the Reform Act of 1832, and it is not until we come to the
half-century of agitation leading up to that long-delayed sequel of the Revolution of 1688 that
we find Yorkshire taking any prominent part in political history.

Conspicuous among the promoters of the Revolution was the Yorkshireman, Sir Thomas
Osborne, better known as the Earl of Danby, who in 1694 was raised to a dukedom, taking his
title from the town of Leeds, whose mayor and corporation presented him with an address on
the occasion.”

Two years later a thorough reform of the coinage was undertaken and a mint was established
at York,” but it was some time before the Yorkshire folk took kindly to the new coins,

The first Jacobite rebellion seems to have found no substantial support in Yorkshire, where
the Hanoverian succession was apparently received without demur, judging from the absence of
evidence to the contrary, but the adventurous expedition of Prince Charlie in 1745 created a great
deal of apprehension, and the city and county hastened to give proofs of their loyalty to the
reigning house. The archbishop, Thomas Herring, took the lead in forming an association of
eee clergy, and gentry. A large subscription was collected, and several companies of
Lecen aL att, a pane gentry peeria under arms for ten months, but their services
being ee ; 740 many rebels were tried and convicted at York, twenty-two

Changes in the militia regulations in 1757 stirred up much discontent, which broke out in
fiat ay ce aes and in the city of York into open rioting, which was not put down

The political changes ushered in by the accession of George III were brought h York
shire when the popular Lord Lieutenant of the West Ridi . alii ec
ane dismical Ft his office tn 1763." est Riding, the great Marquess of Rockingham,

“ot F. Reresby’s Memoirs (ed. Cartwright), 374. * Thid. 391, * Ibid. 392

* Ibid. 400. ® Ibid. 412-18. * Thid, 427.
Stowe MS. 747, fol. 32, relating to Yorkshire ; also Cal. S.P. Dom. 1694-5, p. 121

™ Cal. Treas. Papers, 1557-1696, pp. 508-48, passim. ;

®'T. Allen, Hist. Yorks. (1829), i, 188 et seq. %* Ibid. 190

® Cal, Home Office Papers, 1760-5, p. 209. a

431

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The beginnings of the agitation for constitutional reform can perhaps be traced in Yorkshire
to the petition signed by over 10,000 freeholders of the county against the rejection by the House
of Commons of John Wilkes as M.P. for Middlesex.”® This was but one of many similar petitions
from various parts of the country. The frequency with which petitions concerning constitutional
grievances are henceforward presented is an indication of the growing political self-consciousness
of the people, particularly in the rapidly rising towns of the new industrial districts, where the
increase of wealth was giving rise to new ideas and ambitions. ‘There is a close connexion between
the increasing political agitation that we can trace at work in Yorkshire, particularly in the West
Riding, and the prosperity of the manufacturing industries, as noted in a report inserted in the
Home Office Papers for 1775.”

The agitation seems to have been extremely active during the years 1779-81. On
30 December 1779 a great meeting at York agreed to present a petition to the House of Commons
in favour of ‘retrenchment and reform of the administration,’ for the burden of the war was
greatly felt, and there was much jealousy of the increased interference of the king in government,
as expressed in Dunning’s famous motion in the House of Commons in 1780. Committees were
formed to push the petition and to form an association for promoting the objects thereof.” On
2 August 1780 the Yorkshire committee of the association passed resolutions against the undue
interference of the military in riots.” The objects of the petitioners seemed to be realized when, on
20 March 1782, the Marquess of Rockingham became the head of a new administration on condition
that : (2) peace was made with the Americans ; (4) substantial reforms were effected in the civil list
expenditure ; and (c) the Crown influence in Parliament should be restricted. But on 1 July the
marquess died. His funeral at York was made the occasion of a great demonstration of public
regret.&!

5 The prevalent fear of a foreign invasion was met by the formation of an armed association to
defend the county, to support which the corporation of York voted a sum of money.”

Still the constitutional agitation did not die out but rather went forward in its aims, for in
1783 petitions came from the county and city of York and from Scarborough in favour of
‘remedying the present state of’ the representation gf the people in Parliament.®

The revolutionary ideas, stimulated by the tragic events in France, fell into congenial soil in
the industrial districts of Yorkshire. Charles James Fox received a tremendous welcome at York
in 1791, and next year in Sheffield the retreat of the Duke of Brunswick was made the occasion
of a great celebration, when flags were displayed bearing republican mottoes.® Next year petitions
poured into the House of Commons praying for Parliamentary reform. ‘The Sheffield petition
boldly asked for ‘a representation from population alone,’ and the House refused to receive it.**
In 1795 a Bill was brought in for ‘more effectually preventing seditious meetings and assemblies.’
Petitions supporting it came from Leeds and from the gentlemen of Yorkshire, and against it from
Sheffield, York, and the freeholders of the county. Another petition was also presented praying
that peace might be made.®* The state of the county may be gauged from these facts, and from
the further fact that in 1794, owing to the unsettled condition of affairs, a great meeting of the
inhabitants of York was convened and it was resolved that the most respectable inhabitants should
be enrolled in different corps of infantry.®

The year 1817 was remarkable for outbreaks of disaffection in the commercial districts,
primarily due to the distress consequent upon the great Napoleonic wars and to the apathy of the
government towards the state of the people. Parliamentary reform was regarded as a remedy by
a large proportion of the labouring classes, and advantage was taken of their discontent by political
emissaries pretending to be reformers, who were in reality spies and instigators.

The most notorious of these was one Oliver who concentrated his efforts in south-west
Yorkshire, where he inculcated the belief that the people in London and other parts were only
waiting to be joined by the reformers in the north in order to rise and overturn the government.
Several meetings were held, notably one at Thornhill Lees, where the few persons who came
together were surrounded by a strong military detachment and carried off to Wakefield, Oliver, the
prime mover, being suffered to escape. The whole system of espionage thus came to light. None
of the prisoners, however, were punished.

Two days after the Thornhill meeting some hundreds of persons assembled near Huddersfield

% Annual Reg. 1769, p. 205.

7 Cal. Home Office Papers, 1773-5, p. 416. 7 Annual Reg. xxii (1 , 85; App. 338.
" Ibid. xxiv (1781), 140. ® Tbid. ae a pene a
9 Ibid. 182; Allen, op. cit. i, 197. @ Allen, op. cit. i, 196.

S Commons Fourn. xxxix, 251; Annual Reg. xxvi (1783), 197, 204; App. 307.

Ibid. xxxv, 148. * Commons Fourn. li.

® Ibid. 1, 390. * Allen, op. cit. 1, 201,

432

POLITICAL HISTORY

and even went so far as to fire upon a small body of yeomanry, but then dispersed without doing
anything more. A number of arrests were made, and though no convictions appear to have been
obtained the authorities were able to suppress the manifestations of unrest for the time being.” Three
years later, however, in March 1820, Huddersfield was again a centre of disturbance. A projected
attack on that town came to nothing, but an assembly of labourers on Grange Moor with intent to
attack Barnsley ended in the arrest of twenty-two men, who were persuaded to plead guilty and were
then transported for seven years. In 1825 the Bradford district was the scene of a great strike of
woolcombers and weavers, who formed a union to the number of 20,000 members, and held out for
twenty-three weeks before they were beaten.” The next year there was rioting at Bradford,
directed against the employment of machinery, but although the military had to be called out little
harm was done.’ Bradford was again the scene of riots in 1837 when the new Poor Law was
enforced, and there were Chartist outbreaks here and at Sheffleld and Dewsbury in January 1840.
The great distress prevalent during the summer of 1842 led to further rioting, Chartist mobs stopping
the mills in the neighbourhood of Leeds, close to which town they were dispersed by the police and
the Lancers, under command of Prince George of Cambridge. No less than two thousand persons
were committed to prison for rioting in Yorkshire at this time.*® The unrest continued for some
years and Bradford was concerned in Chartist rioting as lateas May 1848. Since that time the history
of the county has been mainly concerned with the growth of its manufacturing centres ; the strikes
and other industrial incidents belonging to the realm of Economic History, with which we are not
here concerned.

As early as 1821 there was talk ot enfranchising the town of Leeds in place of Grampound,
which for excessive corruption had lost its right to return members. The first proposal was that all
owners of property worth £10 should have the vote ; the qualification was then raised to £20 and in
the end the House of Lords rejected the claims of Leeds to be represented but gave two extra
members to the county instead, Yorkshire thus returning four members. By the Reform Bill of
1832 Aldborough, Boroughbridge, and Hedon were disfranchised ; Northallerton and Thirsk lost one
member each, while Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, and Halifax obtained two members, and Huddersfield,
Wakefield, and Whitby one each.” At the first election following, one of the two members for
Leeds was Thomas Babington Macaulay, the historian.1”

At the present time the North Riding is divided into the parliamentary divisions of Cleveland,
Richmond, Thirsk with Malton, and Whitby; the East Riding into Buckrose, Holderness and
Howdenshire ; the West into Barkston Ash, Barnsley, Colne Valley, Doncaster, Elland, Hallamshire,
Holmfirth, Keighley, Morley, Normanton, Osgoldcross, Otley, Pudsey, Ripon, Rotherham, Shipley,
Skipton, Sowerby, and Spen Valley. Bradford and Hull return three members, Halifax and York
two each, Leeds five, Sheffield (with Attercliffe, Brightside, Ecclesall, and Hallam) five, while
Huddersfield, Middlesbrough, Pontefract, and Wakefield each return one member.

Five regiments of the line have been associated with Yorkshire.1 The 14th, West Yorkshire
Regiment, of which the head quarters are at York, was raised by James II at the time of the
Monmouth rebellion in 1685 but first saw service under William III, and on two occasions—at
Glenshiel in 1705 and at Culloden in 1745—took part in the defeat of the Jacobites. Further
identification with the Hanoverian cause was shown when the badge of the White Horse was given
to the regiment by George III in 1765, for their good conduct when stationed at Windsor. They
earned great distinction during the Peninsular War, when they adopted ‘ a ira’ as their regimental
quickstep. At Waterloo the battalion engaged was composed mainly of recruits, who proved worthy
of their regiment’s traditions. Another battalion served in India from 1815 to 1826, and for its
gallantry at Bhurtpore received the colour honour of the tiger. In 1876 the 14th became ‘the
Prince of Wales’s Own,’ and it has since done good service in South Africa, where the 4th battalion
of militia took part in the war. The 15th, East Yorkshire Regiment, stationed at Beverley, was
raised at the same time as the 14th and has, if anything, a more distinguished record. Blenheim
(1704), Ramillies (1706), and Oudenarde (1708) are amongst their colour honours, and after the
storming of Louisburg in 1758 under Wolfe they assisted at the capture of Quebec, of which they
were put in garrison, their colonel being appointed governor. But after serving in the West Indies
they saw no more fighting till the war in South Africa, where they were joined by their volunteer
battalion. The 19th, Yorkshire Regiment, afterwards known as ‘ Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s
Own,’ stationed at Richmond, unlike the 14th and 15th, was raised in the interest of William III,

° 'T. Allen, Hist. Yorks. (1829), i, 206-8 ; Commons’ Journ, \xxiii, 778-80,

5! Schroeder, Ann. of Yorks. i, 226. * Tbid. 238. 8 Thi

: et ae Ann. of York, 449. pee id. 242.
1a. 4 5. i : 83. rn ?

8 Schroeder, op. cit. i, 229. % Ibid. . 50. ‘ah nae 558.

* Rudolf, Short Hist. of Territorial Regiments.
3 433 55

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

in 1688. A second battalion was constituted in 1691 out of a regiment raised in 1689, but it was
disbanded in 1697. In 1782 it was called the ‘First Yorkshire North Riding.’ The 19th saw
service in the Crimea, at Alma, Inkerman and Sevastopol and afterwards in the Tirah campaign of
1897-8. They also played a prominent part in South Africa, especially at Paardeburg, and their
volunteer battalions did good work in guarding communications. ;

The 49th, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, was constituted in 1881 ; the first battalion
being the old srst King’s Own Light Infantry, raised in 1755 from the West Riding under the
Marquess of Rockingham and Sir George Savile. The 51st served with distinction at Minden on
1 August 1759, on the anniversary of which battle the men of all ranks wear roses (the regimental
badge being a white rose). During the gallant defence of Minorca the regiment was reduced to
270 men, but it was refilled with Leeds men and obtained six war honours in the Peninsula, as well
as Waterloo. The second battalion had been raised in 1839 as the 2nd Madras European Light
Infantry, being incorporated in the British army in 1861. Pontefract, the head quarters of the
49th, is also the depot of the 55th, York and Lancaster Regiment, constituted in 1881 out of the
65th, which had seen service in New Zealand in 1861-3, and the 84th, which won distinction in
the Indian Mutiny.

In the history of the auxiliary forces Yorkshire plays an important part, the raising of a regiment
of light horse, known as ‘The Royal Regiment of Hunters,’ in September 1745, being often con-
sidered the first germ of the Yeomanry. Asa matter of fact the county had been anticipated by the
Northampton Association of 1744,” but the Yorkshire Light Horse were a noticeably early instance
of volunteer cavalry. Their first rank was formed by the gentlemen subscribers and the second and
third by their servants. General Oglethorpe, who was appointed to command them, reported very
favourably of their form.2 The Government of that time do not seem to have been any more
prompt to encourage voluntary militarism than some of their successors, and Lord Malton
complained bitterly of their neglect, pointing out that when 1,308 stands of arms were needed for
the West Riding volunteers they had only sent 240.*

The Napoleonic War revived the volunteer movement throughout England, and Yorkshire was
again well to the fore. In the first period of activity (1797-9) regiments were raised at Burlington,
Dickering, Driffield, Hull, and Wansford in the East Riding; Northallerton, Scarborough, and
Whitby in the North; and Barkston Ash, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Pontefract, and Sheffield,
as well as at York itself.° These included the Hull Artillery, a little over 100 strong. The
men of this corps were engaged at 1s. the day and were at first expected to train for two days every
week, six hours each day. But in view of the fact that working men could get from 35. to 35. 6d.
a day it was found that the loss of two days deterred possible recruits. It was therefore arranged
that in future they should train for only one day. The fear of a French invasion gave a further
impetus to the volunteer movement and fifty more corps were raised in the county at different
centres between 1803 and 1865, including another corps of artillery at Whitby. There seems to
have been at that time, as at the present, some difficulty in obtaining, or at least maintaining, a
supply of officers, if we may judge from the fact that in the Teesdale Infantry in 1805 seven
captaincies were vacant.’ This corps, which was raised in 1803, consisted of five companies averag-
ing forty men, a Rifle Company of sixty, a Light Company of sixty-five, and a Grenadier Company
of seventy-two.

In the Volunteer organization of the late 19th century and again in the recent Territorial
scheme Yorkshire has shown that she is not lacking in the military enthusiasm which has
distinguished her past history.

* C. Sebag Montefiore, Hist. of Volunteer Forces, 74.

5 Ibid. “ Ibid. 76.
§ Muster Rolls and Pay Lists (W.O.).

§ Ibid. Ibid.

434

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC
HISTORY

O one can question the importance of the physical configuration of a county in
determining its economic development. The difficulty that confronts the writer
dealing with the economic history of Yorkshire is the diversified nature of its
physical characteristics. A description of the West Riding, with each clause
reversed, would give a fairly accurate picture of the East Riding, while the North

Riding has traits in common with both.

Although the interdependence of physical contour and economic expansion is never denied,
there is a tendency to overlook the part played by ethnology in determining the lines along which
a county should advance. In some counties the racial question can be dismissed, but in Yorkshire
it is a factor of the utmost importance. The geological strata have not made the Yorkshireman the
hard-headed, strenuous, energetic man he is; but the composite races from which he sprang, the
struggles through which his ancestors passed in overcoming stubborn nature, the ceaseless dangers in
the midst of which his forbears grew up, must have engendered qualities which fitted him in a
peculiar sense for the part he had to play in the world’s history. It is a curious and not uninteresting
coincidence that the West Riding, which is often spoken of as the workshop of the world, corre-
sponds roughly with the British kingdom of Elmet, which for more than a century defied the English
invaders and only yielded to the arms of the victorious Eadwine.!| The English invaders had in
their turn to yield to Scandinavian supremacy and to Norman conquerors.

The details of Yorkshire’s harrying by William the Conqueror are scanty ; the pitiless story
is summed up with dramatic brevity in the reiterated ‘waste’ written against the entries of the
Domesday Record. In the North Riding the whole of Upper Teesdale was laid waste; the
disappearance of 217 sokemen from Northallerton and Walsgrave, manors belonging to the
rebellious earls, Edwin and Tosti, moved even the stoical officials to pity. The East Riding
suffered still more severely, though Beverley was spared. The same tale of remorseless vengeance
is repeated in the West Riding.” Many holdings were alluded to in the upper reaches of the Ure,
the Nidd, the Wharfe, the Calder, and the Don, but with few exceptions they remained deserted,
tenantless, gradually lapsing back to the waste from which they had been wrested before the
coming of the Conqueror. A straight line drawn from the confluence of the Ure and Nidd to
Leeds, from Leeds to Sheffield with the West Riding boundary to the east and south, incloses
with few exceptions the whole of the West Riding known to be inhabited at the time of the
Survey. Even in this restricted district it is dificult to know to what extent the native inhabitants
had escaped, for the majority of the holdings were in foreign hands. Still, much information can be
gleaned from the Record: there were twice as many owners in capite in the West as in the
North Riding, but only two fewer in the East than in the West.

The king’s thegns, Anglian and Scandinavian, numbered in the West Riding, where Anglians
predominated, 30; in the East Riding 17; inthe North 8. The facts adduced from the list of
mesne tenants show similar results; approximately the West Riding had twice as many English
tenants as the North, five times as many as the East. The West Riding furnished 91 burghers,
the East only 19. The sokemen had almost disappeared from the North Riding, only 55 remained
as against 285 in the West, 130 in the East. There is not such a striking disparity in the list of
villeins, the West and East being almost equal, but the bordars number 912 in the West Riding,
422 in the East, 145 in the North. The total population of Yorkshire, following Dr. Beddoe’s
calculations, is 3,143 for the West Riding, 2,300 for the East Riding, and 1,311 for the North
Riding. But the Conqueror was not answerable for the whole of Yorkshire’s depopulation
Malcolm Canmore, who followed closely on his heels, though his methods differed, achieved the

1J. R. Green, Making of England, 8.

? The invaluable Domesday Map compiled by Dr. Beddoe shows in the most graphic way th diti
of the Riding in 1086; Yorks. Arch. Fourn. xix (2), 1906. re PT oder ae

435

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

same results. Deportation, not destruction, was the keynote of his invasion, for his own country
was so sparsely populated that a prisoner was too valuable an asset to be killed unless dangerous.

Few districts of England needed the pioneer’s axe more than Yorkshire, none waited longer
for it. The two Roman roads, the one going in a gentle curve from Castleford through Tadcaster
to Aldborough, the other passing in a typically straight line from Market Weighton to Malton,
inclosing as they do the Vale of York and the fertile levels of Howdenshire, included the only
cultivated part of the county, for Holderness was only rendered fertile by extensive drainage undertaken
after the Norman Conquest. To the west of this district stretched the Forest of Elmet, a region so
impenetrable that the invading Angles quailed before it. Still farther west the mountainous range
that divides Lancashire from Yorkshire, in the caves of which the last of the Britons sought shelter,
gave birth to the Swale, the Ure, the Wharfe, the Aire, and the Calder, the stored-up power of
whose streams was in the course of centuries to change the dreary wastes into the greatest industrial
centre in the world. To the north, the very name of Cleveland probably bears testimony to the
inhospitable nature of the region bordering on the Tees; while a wedge of lonely and desolate
moorland, covered with ling and furze, broken by the Forest of Pickering and continued by the
Forest of Galtres, stretched from Whitby to the very gates of York. Even the flat country that
lay between the continuation of Ermine Street and the North Sea was rendered difficult of access
by the undulating chalk hills which form the northern wolds.

Nor was the approach from the south-east easy ; the northern moorlands, the western mountains
and forests were hardly more formidable than the fens and marshes that stretched from the Don to
the Trent; a desolate, lonely land where herds of wild deer continued to roam unmolested, until,
in the 17th century, alien genius and enterprise turned the treacherous morass into fertile fields.

The history of the conversion of this Yorkshire of forest, fen, moorland and mountain, roadless
and uninhabited, into the Yorkshire of to-day, intersected with canals, tramways, and railroad, with
an underground population in Cleveland alone much greater than the total population in the
12th century,® is industrial and economic rather than political, ‘The change is of course greatest
in the industrial districts. Until comparatively lately few districts of England remained so little
changed since the Norman Conquest as the East Riding.

To what extent aliens influenced the economic development of Yorkshire in the two centuries
following the Conquest is a mere matter of conjecture, for though tradition is ample and
speculation endless, authentic documentary evidence is meagre. The most that the historian can
do is to show that some of the assertions made on this matter can be easily disposed of by
unimpeachable historical evidence, while others, on account of their inherent probability, deserve
attention, even though historical confirmation is lacking. To the first class belongs the entirely
erroneous statement that during the mediaeval period Yorkshire was destitute of any weaving
industry, and that weaving as a trade was not introduced into the county until Edward III brought
over weavers from Flanders in the 14th century. To the second class belongs the statement,
cautiously and tentatively advanced, that the industry was introduced by the Flemings during the
period immediately following the Conquest.

The Wakefield Court Rolls,f the Hundred Rolls,’ and the York Freemen’s Roll® prove
conclusively that weaving was carried on in all the three Ridings at a period long anterior to the
Edwardian alien settlement, not only as a domestic occupation but asa distinct trade. Beverley
was noted for its cloth as early as the reign of John,’ and York, Beverley, Hedon, Selby, and
Whitby are alluded to by name as centres of an organized weaving industry in the Hundred
Rolls of Edward L®

The fact being proved that, during the period intervening between the arrival of the Normans
and the 14th-century Flemish immigration, the industry flourished in Yorkshire, interest concen-
trates itself on the question as to whether its introduction and development was due to native or
imported enterprise. In the midst of much that must of necessity be more or less supposititious,
one salient fact bearing on the argument stands clearly out. When the Domesday Survey was
made in 1086, Yorkshire, especially the West Riding, was toa great extent waste.? Information
as to the manner in which the district was re-peopled is so scanty and unsatisfactory that it is
equally difficult to find either proof or disproof of the very interesting, though tentative, suggestion
of Dr. Cunningham that the West Riding was partially populated during the 12th century by
Flemish immigrants. Still it is clear that the country being waste must have been re-populated by
immigration either from other parts of England or from the Continent, for when, little more
than a century after the compilation of Domesday Book, the county emerges again into the

5 Cleveland Iron Miners, Feb. 1911, 8201 ; Bd. of Trade Labour Gazette, 52.

* Ct. R. of the Manor of Wakefield (Yorks. Arch. Journ. Rec. Ser. xxix), 112.

§ Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 128. * Freemen of York (Surt. Soc.), i, 3, 4, 6, 7 et seq.
7 Madox, Hist. Exch. i, 468. * Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 131-2

® Domesday Map of West Riding, loc. cit.

436

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

dry light of official documentary reports, population has increased rapidly and constant references to
fullers, spinners, weavers and dyers show the adoption of the trade was widespread. No
part of England was so overburdened with inhabitants as to allow of any considerable
transference of its people during the period. Several of the followers of William the Conqueror
to whom large Yorkshire estates were apportioned held also land on the Continent : it is hardly
straining evidence to suppose that in working their newly-acquired possessions labour would be
brought from abroad. But as the Low Countries were the most densely populated regions of
Europe, it seems probable that men from this land of weavers, seeking an outlet for their energies,
cramped in the crowded districts of their native country, would turn naturally to a region as easy
of access as England. It is a well authenticated fact that a steady stream of immigration set in
from the Continent to England during the two centuries following the Conquest. Henry I
brought his bride from Flanders, and many Flemings followed the queen to her new home.
Stephen constantly imported Flemish mercenaries to fight his battles.

Nor was the Flemish invasion left to haphazard individual enterprise ; Henry I made a
systematic attempt to plant a colony of Flemings at the mouth of the Tweed,” and later in Wales.”
Even if the antiquarian argument be accepted, that if he had followed the same policy on the
borders of Strathclyde the fact could not have escaped the attention of the annalist, it still remains
indisputable that a considerable amount of individual immigration might take place without
attracting the attention of the few capable of chronicling it. “There was a contingent of Flemings
in Carlisle at an even earlier date, in the reign of William Rufus.”

Fortunately, when the question narrows itself from England in general to Yorkshire in
particular, there is much unimpeachable evidence to prove that Flemings had settled in various
parts of the county. It is a curious and suggestive coincidence that the town that figures most
frequently in the early records as being connected with the cloth industry is the place round about
which the Conqueror had given large estates to a Fleming, Drogo de la Bouerer.'® The Flemings
would resort to a neighbourhood where they might naturally expect to find protection. ‘Tradition,
too, points to the presence of Flemings in Beverley in the 12th century, for Fleming Gate, one of
the town thoroughfares, bore the name in the reign of John,“ and it is said that many Flemish
merchants lived there at that early date. At the east end of the north aisle of St. Mary’s Church
there is a chapel called the Flemings’ Chapel, though it is probable that it owes its name to some
later immigration of Flemings, possibly only sojourners, for there was constant intercourse between
Beverley and the Low Countries for many centuries.”

If, following Dr. Cunningham and Professor Gross, the view is adopted that certain disabilities
under which the fullers and weavers of some towns lived point to an alien settlement, then
confirmatory evidence is afforded, for the same curious law was in force in Beverley that was
followed in London. Apart from the bearing that it has on the point in question, the law itself
is of sufficient importance in connexion with the economic conditions under which cloth was
produced, at a time when evidence is scanty, to merit quotation.

This is to be known that they cannot dry any cloth, nor in order to carry on any trade go out
of the town, nor can any free man be accused by them, nor can they bear any evidence ; and if any
one wishes to forswear his trade let him deal with him who is called Mayor and with the bailiffs of
the town that he may be received into the freedom of the town and let him get rid of the tools from
his house and this law they have in the freedom of London as they say."

In York, too, Flemings settled ; Walter le Flyming and Gilkin le Flemyng were enrolled
as freemen in 1291,” Copin Flemyng was chamberlain in 1292-3, Gilkin de Braban took up
his freedom in 1296,” Jacob le Flemyng was mayor in 1299.” The name occurs no fewer than
fifty-three times in the earliest Wakefield Court Rolls, and the nature of the entries suggests that
the Le Flemings were people of importance and had been settled in the neighbourhood for some
time at the date of the first allusion to them in 1274.7!

Communication between Flanders and Yorkshire by sea in those days of bad roads was easier
than between the northern and southern counties of England by land ; it is somewhat difficult to

0 E. A. Freeman, The Norman Conquest, v, 855.

1 W. Cunningham, Growth of Engl. Industry and Commerce, App. 642-50.

John Denton, Cumberland Estates and Families (ed. by R. S. Ferguson, Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq.
Soc.). The writer is indebted to Dr. Beddoe for this reference.

18 Chron. Mon. de Melsa (Rolls Ser.), i, 89. “ G. Oliver, Hist. and Antig. of Beverley, 273 n.

® Exch. K.R. Mins. Accts. bdle. 1127, no. 18, m. 13, Possessions of Aliens.

* Add. MSS. 14252 ; C. Gross, Gidd Merchant, i, 108 ; W. Cunningham, op. cit. App. E.; A. F. Leach
Beverley Town Doc. (Seld. Soc. xiv). :

Y York Freemen, ut sup. 5. 8 Ibid. ” Tbid. 6. * Tbid. 7.

| Wakefield Ct. R. ut sup. 84 et seq.

437

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

believe that the Flemish avoided that part of England which was peculiarly accessible and which
needed inhabitants the most. An immense horde of Flemish mercenaries took part in the battle
of the Standard, fought near Northallerton ; it is possible that some remained in Yorkshire.

In the absence of documentary proof, the evidence of ethnology becomes of supreme impor-
tance. Dr. Beddoe’s summing up of the subject is in favour of a Flemish origin of some of
the Yorkshire settlers, for he uses ‘French’ as equivalent to the descendants of the Franks, and
the Flemish were of Frank origin.

Still I do not see how some of the greater desert tracts which have been mentioned could have
progressed as they seem to have done without immigration from a distance . . . and Professor
Phillips’s observations, and to a less extent my own, as to the presence of a type that may be French
in parts of the great plain, lead me to think that there was a certain amount of immigration, accom-
plished perhaps by stages, from the continent.”

On the evidence forthcoming it is impossible to give an authoritative verdict ; still it must be
borne in mind that when William of Normandy and Malcolm of Scotland had wrought their will
on Yorkshire the country with few exceptions lay waste, the inhabitants were few in number and
depressed in condition, "The whole balance of historical probability is against a conquered people
having sufficient energy and enterprise to organize a decayed or establish a new industry. The
Normans themselves were too busy ruling a subject race to interest themselves in the organization
of a mere handicraft. On the whole it seems very probable that the development of weaving was
due to foreign influence, and if to foreign, then the Flemish undoubtedly were the people most
likely to undertake the work, as being the most skilful weavers and living in a very congested part
of Europe.

The adoption of this view would explain many dialectic, physical, and mental characteristics
which differentiate Yorkshire from the rest of England, and explain the general adoption of weaving
as a trade at a time when the development of the district was in other respects behind the rest
of the country.

The roll of the freemen of York throws considerable light on the subject. During the reigns
of Edward I and Edward II the number of freemen connected with the cloth trade is incon-
siderable ; it only reaches a total of 13: Robert de Seton, chaloner,” William de Malton, fuller,”
Roger le Long, fuller, William de Barkeston, fuller,2® Henry de Richemond, sagher,?” Richard de
Laycestre,** chaloner, Robert de Heworth,” sagher, William de Welleton, chaloner,® John de
Novocastro, webster,*? Randal de Fangfoss, fuller,*? John de Wales,** fuller, Adam de Clifton *4 and
Robert de Mersk,* websters, not one alien among them, completed the list. York had obviously
lost the position it held under Henry II and John, when nominally the monopoly of weaving for
the whole county was in its hands.** Possibly the trade was not entirely lost, but diffused.
Nor had the trade revived much under Henry III, for then the wool trade of Yorkshire passed into
the hands of the great monastic houses. In 1315 thirty-six Yorkshire monasteries ” were exporting
wool to the Florentine and Flemish markets. But royal rather than ecclesiastical influence initiated
the change by which England was transformed from a country producing raw material into a country
manufacturing the raw materials produced by other countries.

To Edward II is due the first step in the direction of making England ‘the workshop of
the world.’ He hoped to achieve his purpose by offering advantages to those Flemish weavers who
were willing to settle in his kingdom. Letters of protection were issued to such Flemings as
wished to come to England, and among others, William de Brabant and Hanckinus de Brabant,
who decided to settle in York, received the royal authorization.*

The absence of any further warrants is sometimes adduced as evidence that the planting of
immigrants in Yorkshire was a mere spasmodic attempt, but the year following, 1337, a statute
was passed which rendered specific licences unnecessary.

That all the cloth workers of strange lands, of whatsoever country they may be, which will come
into England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland within the King’s power, shall come safely and surely and
shall be in the King’s protection and safe conduct to dwell in the same lands (choosing where they
will), and to the intent the said cloth workers shall have the greater will to come and dwell here our
Sovereign Lord the King will grant them franchises as many and such as shall suffice them.”

"J. Beddoe, The Ethnology of West Yorks. ; Yorks. Arch. Journ. xix (2), 59 (1906) ; Kirkby’s Inquest
(Surt. Soc.), 19 ; West Riding Lay Subs. 1297 (Yorks. Arch. Rec. Ser.), 16.

® Freemen of York, ut sup. 3. * Thid. 6. * Ibid. 7. * Ibid. 7.

7 Tbid. 8. * Ibid. 11. * Ibid. 12. » Ibid. 16. " Ibid. 18.
% Ibid. 18. 8 Ibid. 19. ™ Ibid. 22. * Ibid. 23.

* Rot. Lit. Claus. (Rec. Com.), i, 421 3 C. Gross, op. cit. 108. * W. Cunningham, op. cit. 624-8.

Rymer, Foed. ii (2), 954 (10 Edw. III, 1336). The names of these individuals do not appear in the
York Freemen’s Register, but the names of many other Flemish settlers do.
® Stat. 11 Edw. III, cap. 5.

438

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

The York Freemen’s Roll certainly bears out the contention that the immediate result of the
Edwardian legislation was an influx of Flemish weavers. ‘

In 1343 Nicholas de Admare de Brabant and John de Colonia, websters, were enrolled,
Henry Morell de Flandre follows two years later,‘ and from that date references to aliens connected
with the different handicrafts and trades of York are frequent. In 1352 Thomas Braban de
Malyns, textor, Lawrence Conyng de Flandre, webster, George Fote de Flandre, walker, and Robert
de Arays, ‘taillour,’ took their freedom. Each year saw the incursion of one or two of these alien
artisans, in 1355 Gerwin Giffard de Gaunt ‘tixtor,’“ and Levekyn Giffard, his brother, in 13 58
Gerome and Piers de Durdraght (Dortrecht), walkers, came to the city.

/ In 1359 Arnald de Lovayne, ‘teinturer,’* and in 1361 Geoffrey de Lovayn, webster, left

~~ their own country to settle in York.*® Thus each individual branch of the clothiers’ trade, fulling,
weaving, dyeing and tailoring had its alien representative, and to make the tale of English dependence
on foreign industrial enterprise complete, in 1372 Godfrey Overscote de Braban traded as a
merchant.*” It is impossible to deny that aliens settled in York in the reign of Edward II in large
numbers and that they were brought for the specific purpose of developing the woollen industry.
The question arises: Had their arrival any appreciable effect on the industrial development of
the city? It has been said that during the reigns of Edward I and II only thirteen freemen were
enrolled as following the woollen trade inclusive of all its branches. During the reign of Edward III
170 weavers, 100 dyers, fifty fullers and about thirty chaloners, besides various members of trades
subsidiary to the woollen industry, such as shearers, wool-packers and card-makers, were admitted.
Since there exists overwhelming evidence of the presence of a large body of skilled foreign work-
people in York in the 14th century, the question naturally arises whether these settlers affected
industrial life beyond the limits of the place of their immediate settlement.

The alien cloth-workers, who settled at York in the 14th century, must have been men of
importance ; they would naturally bring with them to the country of their adoption their families
and their servants ; that none of these left York to seek their fortunes in the west district argues a
lack of enterprise incompatible with their parentage. Nor was York during the early years of
Richard II a place that would be attractive to men with no local ties or interests. ‘The city was
in a state of the greatest anarchy, owing to constant feuds between rival factions in the council, and
endless disputes between the lay and clerical element; foreigners would find it difficult to pursue
their work and would push their way into the sparsely populated district to the west.

Briefly summarized, the argument against the alien settlement in the time of Edward III in
the West Riding is threefold. It is based on a supposed absence of names of Flemish origin amongst
early weavers, and the fact that no letters of protection issued by Edward III have come to light
concerning the West Riding. It is also insisted upon that the general characteristics of the West
Riding, with the idiosyncracies of the people and the physical configuration of the district, lend
themselves so easily to a system of exclusion and isolation, that the settlement of aliens in the
district would be dificult. If any one of these arguments could not be satisfactorily answered, it
would tell strongly in favour of an industry worked on purely national lines. Fortunately, however,
the 1379 Poll Tax Returns prove that in the reign of Richard II a number of Flemish were settled
in the West Riding of Yorkshire, many of whom were connected with the woollen industry, though
evidence of the trade of the tax-payer is not always given.

Villata de Wombwell. Johannes de Wyskerrode et Alicia ux. ejus Taylour vjd.
Villata de Bautre. Johannes Brabayn et Agnes ux. ejus Webester vjd.*
.y 55 Walterus Lowayne et Alicia ux. ejus iiijd.
Villata de Redenesse. Robertus de Lymburgh Margarita ux. ejus iiijd.5!
- 5 Johannes de Lymberg Idonia ux. ejus itijd.”
Villata de Wilmerslay (Womersley). Bertholomeus Brabayn iiijd.™
Saxton. Johannes Braban et ux. ilijd.§
sy Johannes Brabanman iiijd.©
Selby. Johannes Braban et ux. iiijd.5°
Villata Snydall. Emundus Hambergelman Johanna ux. ejus iiijd.”
Villata de Haikton (Ackton). Johannes de Flaundres Johanna ux. ejus iiijd.

+5 3 Margareta serviens ejus iiijd.

és *5 Johannes de Flaundre ux. ejus iiijd.8
“ Freemen of York, ut sup. 37. “ Thid. 39.
* Ibid. 48. * Ibid. 51. “ Thid. 53.
Thid. 54. hid. 56. " Ibid. 70.
° Returns of the Poll Tax for the West Riding of Yorks. 1379, p. 3 © Ibid. 14.
% Tbid. 57. 3! Thid. 113. * Thid. 113
8 Ibid. 134. 4 Tbid. 142. ® Thid. 142.
58 Ibid. 156. 7 Thid. 164. * Tbid, 165.

439

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Villata de Almanbary. Symon Flemyng et Johanna ux. ejus iiijd.”
Hunslet. Matilda Brabane iiijd.
Ledeston. Johannes Hoet et ux. iiijd.™
Johanna Hoet iiijd.”
», Thomas Hoet iiijd.®
59 Diota Hoet iiijd.*
, Alicia Hoet iiijd.®*
Ledes. Henricus Brabaner iiijd.®
Villa de Spofford. Johannes Brabaner, Textor, et ux. ejus vjd.”
Knaresburgh. Adam Brabaner et uxor ejus vjd.®
Westgate in Rypon. Thomas Alman iiijd.®
Stainbuggate in Rypon. Lamkynus de Braban, Textor vjd.”
Northstanlay. Nicholaus de Delpe et uxor ejus iiijd.7
Skypton. Petrus Brabaner, Webster, et ux. xijd.”
Petrus Brabaynner junior Webster et ux. vjd."

»”

The argument of the isolation of the district and the opposition of the native element to the
presence of the foreigner becomes untenable before the unimpeachable evidence of their actual
presence in the district, and since there is a natural tendency on the part of alien settlers to adopt
native names, the foreign element in Yorkshire in the reign of Richard II was probably greater in
extent than is suggested by the nomenclature of the Poll Tax list. In fact, the more the evidence is
studied, the more doubtful it becomes as to whether the verdict which dismisses Fuller’s description
of the settlement of the Flemish weavers in the country districts in the reign of Edward III as the
mere rhetorical flourish of an active imagination, ought not to be reconsidered.”

Again, as the point of the Edwardian settlement was amalgamation, no effort would be made
to emphasize the distinction between native and alien ; nor is it ever claimed that large bodies of
aliens were planted down in colonies; the most reasonable theory seems to be that the movement
went on gradually by twos and threes, not in battalions. Edward’s intention was to improve
manufacture, not in one place, but throughout the county, so no obstacle would be put in the way
of alien migration from one centre to another. In the absence of evidence of a negative character,
the laws of human nature and of probability must be carefully weighed. On the whole the balance
of probability inclines towards the alien element not remaining in York, but spreading into the
county, especially the West Riding. The mistake of the older historians was not, probably, so
much one of fact as of suppression of the circumstantial nature of the evidence on which their
deductions were based. It has already been shown that there is a certain amount of persumptive
evidence that the woollen industry originated during the century following the Conquest, and that
the Flemings played no inconsiderable part in its development, even if they did not actually introduce
the trade. It is incontrovertible that the industry fell into decay during the reigns of Henry III,
Edward I and II, and was revived in the reign of Edward II. It is beyond question that Flemish
weavers introduced by Edward III encouraged the revival of the trade in York, and that they are
found in the West Riding in the following reign. On the comparatively unimportant question as to
whether they migrated from York on their own initiative or came direct from the Low Countries
to the west part of the county there is at present no evidence.

No event of the Middle Ages had such a far-reaching effect on the economic condition of the
country as the Black Death. By the middle of the year 1349 the plague was at its height
throughout the whole of Yorkshire. The careful statistics compiled by the late F. Seebohm 7° from
the Torre MSS. prove that more than two-thirds of the parish priests of the West Riding died.
The mortality was not much less in the East Riding, only sixty of the ninety-five parish priests
escaped. The monastery of Meaux, with its forty-nine monks ruled by Abbot Hugh, lost during
the month of August twenty-two clerks and six lay brethren. The abbot and five monks suc-
cumbed in one day, only one-fifth of the total number remained.” The abbots of four of the

* Ibid. ® Ibid. * Ibid. 215.

* Ibid. 223. ® Ibid. 239. ® Ibid. 250.

” Ibid. 250. Ibid. 252. ” Ibid. 267. ™ Tbid. 267.

™ Happy the yeoman’s house into which one of these Dutchmen did enter, bringing industry and wealth
along with them. Such who came in strangers within their doors, soon after went out bridegrooms, and
returned son-in-laws, having married the daughters of their landlords who first entertained them ; yea, these
yeomen in whose houses they harboured soon proceeded gentlemen, gaining great estates to themselves, arms
and worship to their estates. T. Fuller, Church Hist.i, 419.

> F, Seebohm, ‘The Black Death,’ Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1865.

®F. A. Gasquet, The Great Pestilence, 179.

440

SULIAL AND BUUVUNUMIU TMioltvinti

largest Yorkshire monasteries died of the disease. The mortality amongst the clergy broke down
the most deeply-rooted ecclesiastical prejudices. Contrary to all precedent, the pope was forced to
allow the people to choose their own confessors.”” New cemeteries had to be consecrated by the
suffragan archbishop for the mortality increased daily, additional ordinations had to be held, otherwise
the sacred offices could not have been performed.” Archbishop Zouch made his will on 18 June
1349 considering ‘quod morte nil cercius humanae creaturae, quamquam nichil incercius ejus hora.’”?
But the collection of wills published by the Surtees Society, which cover this period, show few
traces of the plague, only nine wills are given between 1348 and 1351." —

It is probably owing to the preponderance of information from ecclesiastical sources that the
belief has become so general that the clergy suffered more than any other class of the community,
but a careful study of the limited material other than ecclesiastical does not bear out this assumption.

The extant rolls of Crown officials show phenomenally rapid changes ; the inquisitions post
mortem afford similar evidence as to the great mortality among the tenants. The roll of the
freemen of York bears ample witness to the effect on the mercantile and artisan class. The
number of freemen enrolled each year during the 14th century varies between 50 and 60. The
plague reached Yorkshire in 1349, and that year no fewer than 208 new freemen were admitted,
and more than §0 different trades represented. Many of the trades only gained 1, 2 or 3 members,
but 8 skinners and 8 glovers, 10 mariners and 12 new mercers were added. ‘There must have
been either exceptional mortality among the tailors and shoemakers or an exceptional demand for
new clothes and shoes, for 22 tailors and 33 shoemakers figure in the list. The enrolments
certainly fell to little more than half that number in the following year, only however, to rise again
to 132 in 13513; they decreased to 104 in 1352, and by 1353 they became and remained normal.
The exceeding heavy roll of the year 1363, when 218 new freemen were registered, points to
another and even more severe visitation. An analysis of the list, however, suggests some unusual
development of the woollen trade, as one-third of the number are walkers, websters, wool-packers,
chaloners, tailors, and mercers.*' ‘Taking the ten years previous to and the ten years subsequent to
the pestilence years the numbers read :—

Year. Newly enrolled freemen. Year. Newly enrolled freemen.
1339 = 7. = 55 1351 * = - 132
1340 - - - 61 1352 - - - 104
1341 - = - 48 1353) - = = 54
1342 = = = 72 1354 = ? 7 72
1343 - = . 73 : 1355 = zs : 49
1344 = - = 56 1356 - - = 93
a a ae 1957 <= eos 58
1346 - - - 52 1358 - - - 63
| ane; 189) Se 71
1348 - - - 60 1360 - - - 87
1349 . - - 208 1361 t = _ 104
1350 - - - 117

A curious example of the maintenance of order in spite of the general panic is found in the
Coroners’ Rolls. Four of the parishes of York met and reviewed the body of William Needler
who was found dead. ‘They certified that he died ‘a natural and not a violent death by reason of
the pestilence in Coppergate, York, on 7 August 1349”; the inquest must have taken place when
the plague was at its worst. Seventeen of the twenty-one York clergy of whom information is
extant died of the plague. It is asserted that the population of York before the visitation was between
30,000 and 40,000,” but from the 1378 poll tax census it stood between 11,000 and 13,000.88
It would, however, be rash to deduce that the whole of Yorkshire suffered in the same degree -
York. The low situation of the city, the swarming population pent up within walls, the heaviness
and humidity of the air, especially during the month of August when the plague was raging fiercel
rendered the disease more easily spread and more difficult to eradicate. It is certainly in Yor
and the low-lying districts of the East Riding that the greatest mortality is heard of, though
Richmond, one of Yorkshire’s highest and healthiest places, is said to have suffered severely Tis
impossible to overrate the influence of the Black Death on the economic condition of Yorkshire ;
probably, however, it suffered in a less degree than those counties where agriculture was on more
strictly arable lines. Still the dislocation of the labour market, the rise in the price of commoditie :
the sudden changes in the ownership of capital and land, were of far-reaching effect Th, :
immediate result, the fall in the price of wool, was especially disastrous to a county which donenaed

7 Raine, op. cit. 491. "8 Thid. ” Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), il, 55

see *' Freemen of York. ut
“ F. Seebohm, op. cit. 158. eM OUR Sa" oe

“E. Powell, The East Anglia Rising, 123; W. Denton, England in xv cent. 98.
3 441 56

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

for its welfare on its export trade in that commodity. There is not much direct evidence of land
thrown out of cultivation, though the high rate of mortality among the tenants (nearly all those
holding land from the monastery of Meaux were dead) must have had a disastrous effect. But the
case often cited of Richmond rests on the unsupported evidence of an early rgth-century writer.”
It is said that ‘a plague and epidemic disease consumed about 2,000 of the inhabitants, so that
Wittcliff pasture became a waste, overrun with briers, nettles, and other noxious weeds’.

Plague swept over the north of England again in 1391; York suffered severely, though as
neither Freemen’s Roll nor Municipal Records allude to the visitation, the assertion that
11,000, that is almost four-fifths of the inhabitants, died in the city may be dismissed as an exag-
geration.®® According to the Rolls of Parliament, in 1379** and again in 1420, the North was
almost decimated by the pestilence. In the last case it had raged for ‘three years past and still
reigns.” In 1441, according to an inquisition taken at Richmond, ‘many burgesses, artificers,
victuallers, workmen, and other inhabitants have been consumed by pestilence and plague.’®* Three
outbreaks of plague in Hull in 1472, 1476, and 1478 destroyed for the time the prosperity of the
port. The attack in 1478 was undoubtedly severe, more than 1,500 people are said to have died,
including the mayor and his family, churches were closed, streets were deserted, the people having
fled from the town.® But there is one marked difference between these attacks of plague of the
second half of the century and the Black Death. They were localized in the towns, escape by
flight was possible to the wealthy, but in 1349 death was in the soil, town and country suffered
alike, the fortunes of wealthy and poor were equalized.”

The inroads of the Scots during the first half of the 14th century tended to disorganize and
retard the economic development of Yorkshire. It was not until the second decade of the century
that they reached so far south as Yorkshire. Fountains Abbey suffered severely from these raids,
the monks could no longer pay taxation, in fact the Scots had not left them sufficient to keep them-
selves."! Ripon preferred paying to being plundered; they bought off the Scots for £1,000.”
Tadcaster Church was destroyed, Pannal damaged ; Bolton was in worse plight than Fountains, for
even its own canons were in destitution. The smaller monasteries and nunneries, which could
offer neither bribes nor resistance, were deserted, their inmates portioned out among the houses
which had not suffered. It is difficult to realize in what a state of terror the inhabitants of the
scattered farm-houses and homesteads must have lived, or to over-emphasize the retrogressive effect
of these raids on the economic and industrial life of Yorkshire. But the enthusiasm evoked by the
defeat of the Scots at Neville’s Cross in 1346, the blow which freed the county from the yoke
under which she had groaned helpless for more than fifty years, bears witness to what had been
endured. The presence of the archbishop William de la Zouch in the thickest of the fight
testifies to the resentment of the Church against the persecutors.

The connexion between the various insurrections in Yorkshire during the year 1380-1 and
the so-called Peasants’ Revolt ** is somewhat obscure. It is improbable that the rioters in Yorkshire
would be unaffected by the course of events in the southern and eastern counties; still, it is important
to remember that in the three cases, Beverley, Scarborough, and York, about which authentic
information is extant, there is no evidence to show that excessive national taxation or special agrarian
grievances were at the root of the discontent; on the contrary, there is abundant documentary proof
that the extortions complained of were local, that ecclesiastical jealousies and class prejudices were
involved and that, although the movements were to a certain degree simultaneous, this synchronism
seems to have been in the Beverley riots entirely accidental. The whole country was in the throes
of an insurrection caused by the misgovernment during the latter part of the reign of Edward III, and
as far as Yorkshire is concerned, the years 1380-1 were rather a crisis in a chronic complaint than
any new and startling development. Still the story of the Beverley riots is interesting, as reflecting
life in a mediaeval Yorkshire city. Beverley was, in the 13th and 14th centuries, one of the leading
English boroughs, with considerable powers of self-government. Nominally the government was in
the hands of twelve keepers, elected annually by the community from eighteen candidates, who were
nominated by the retiring committee ; obviously it was a fairly close oligarchy, though openings
were presented through which innovations could filter.™

Clarkson, Hist. of Richmond (1814), 114.

*F. Drake, Edor. 106. The annalists however refer to the severity of this northern visitation. Cf.
C. Creighton, Hist. of Epidemics in Brit. 220.

§ R. Parl. iv, 806. "7 Ibid. 143.

® Pat. 19 Hen. VI, pt. ii, m. 26, 25 (17 Feb. 1441).

J. Tickell, Hist. of Kingston-upon-Hull, 132. ”C. Creighton, op. cit. 233.
1J. Raine, op. cit. 282. ” Thid. 274.

= For the rising in South Yorkshire in 1392 see Peasant? Rising and the Lollards (ed. E. Powell and
G. M. Trevelyan), 19, 20.

* Miss Mary Bateson, ‘Beverley Town Documents,’ Engi. Hist. Reo. xvi, 662: MSS i
Beverley (Hist. MSS. Com. 1900), 14. . pare Bi atid

442

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISIORY

Nor did Beverley yield to its governors unquestioning obedience. The craft gilds, though
subject to the wardens, were too strong to be disregarded ; the fact that Beverley had a sanctuary
attracted lawless and turbulent people, whose influence would always be on the side of change.
Even the ecclesiastical authority, usually stable and unanimous, was in Beverley split into rival
factions, for the Archbishop of York, Alexander Nevill, was a lover of strife, his power in Beverley
was great, but his ambition greater, and each move in the game was watched with suspicion by ie
Chapter of St. John’s, strong in local prejudice, against the encroachments of an alien authority.
Thus all the elements for a great social upheaval were crowded within the walls of the town, while
the industrial classes were wearied of the supremacy and selfish policy of the rich burghers.

Taking advantage of the general anarchy, the democratic party seized the government out of
the hands of the oligarchical party and placed it in the hands of an alderman, two chamberlains, and
twenty-four guardians, The ringleader of the malcontents, who were principally representatives of
the tailors, butchers, shoemakers, ‘walkers,’ and drapers of the town, was Richard de Midleton.
From the accusations and counter-accusations brought by the rival factions a fairly clear idea of the
main points of disagreement can be gained. Midleton and his followers brought various specific
charges against Adam Coppandale and Thomas de Beverley, the leaders of the oligarchic party, and the
commission declared them guilty of stealing money, the common seal, and various charters. — The
democrats posed not only as the defenders of civic morality, but as defenders of archiepiscopal rights.
The archbishop ®* was appointed referee and it is clear that he was regarded as a partisan of the
commonalty, for Coppandale and his followers fled from the town rather than submit to his judgement.
But the meteor-like success of the democratic party was almost over; the oligarchs rallied their
powers, and in five voluminous petitions to the king set forth the grievous wrongs they had suffered.
It is impossible to deny that, though in the early stages of the quarrel right was on the side of
the commonalty, success had turned their heads and they had defied the law by acts of personal violence
to their enemies. It is difficult to disentangle the main issue from the countless charges and
counter-charges that were brought forward; but one point is clear: it was an inopportune
moment for any innovators, however good their cause, to claim royal support. The disturbance
throughout the country was so great that the king’s advisers would look with suspicion on any
demands that savoured of change. The fprobi homines, as the exiled party called themselves,
obtained from Government a mandate that the Beverley officials should appear in the Court of
Chancery.” But the hold that the revolutionary party had on the people of Beverley is clearly
shown by the difficulty that the central authorities encountered in inducing people to carry out
their instructions. In the meantime Coppandale and his followers, the leaders of the oligarchic
party, probably sure of the support of the council, had given themselves up and were lodged
in the Marshalsea. Midleton, the leader of the opposition, urged illness as an excuse for not
appearing in London; the officials in Beverley gave different excuses for not carrying out the king’s
commands ; Manfeld, the provost, said the offence not being ecclesiastical was beyond his power ;
Thomas de Grimston, the bailiff of the Chapter of St. John’s,** frankly owned that he was prevented
by fear of his life ; William de Erghom, the Sheriff of Yorkshire, said he could not lay his hands on
the delinquents.” But an even more convincing proof of the popular support given to the leaders
of the insurrection is afforded by the tentative nature of the king’s letter. He tries by persuasion
to induce the townspeople to return to their old allegiance ; still, they are only exhorted to meet
together and arrange for the peaceful government of the town.

As Mr. Leach points out, it is clear from the Roll of Accounts for 1386 that both in that
and the previous year the accounts were rendered by an alderman and two chamberlains, not by
the twelve keepers,’ so the change brought about by the democrats was not entirely evanescent.
Still, the tide of insurrection had begun to ebb : the archbishop would also keep the peace.! The
bonds round which the dispute raged were cancelled, and on 18 October 1382 Beverley received a
general pardon, but a heavy fine of 1,100 marks was levied.2 The death of one of the leaders of
the commonalty is recorded in 1384 : ‘Pardon at the instance of the king’s kinsman the Earl of
Northumberland to John Rasin for the death of Richard Boston of Beverley, a rebel and chief
captain of the late insurrection there.’* Probably the Government granted the pardon with relief.
The leaders of the conservative party were pardoned on the payment of a nominal fine.* But an

* C. T. Flower, ‘ Beverley Town Riots,’ Hist. Soc. Trans. (New Ser.), 19, 81.

** Coram Rege R. East. 5 Ric. II, m. 25.

* P.R.O. Ancient Petitions, 11201, 11210; C. T. Flower, op. cit. 84.

™ Close, 5 Ric. II, m. 11. Printed in MSS. of Corp. of Beverley (Hist. Rec. Com.), 18, 19.
P.R.O. Ancient Petitions, 11242. * Pat. 6 Ric. LI, part li, m. 31.
* Pat. 8 Ric. II,m. 1 (18 Dec. 1384).

“Coram Rege R. East. 8 Ric. II, m. 4, printed in André Réville, Le Soul2vement des Travailleurs @’ Angle-
verre, 260-6.

443

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

allusion to these rioters as transgressors against the Statute of Labourers Proves some rages
between the Beverley town riots and the Peasants’ Revolt.* There is little doubt that the
insurrection in Scarborough, though it did not begin until nearly two months after the first outbreak
in Essex, had much in common with it. It is clear from the evidence that it was a rising of the
poorer classes against the rich, uncomplicated by any serious questions of politics.

The story is told by twelve men of Scarborough empanelled to give evidence to Henry, Earl
of Northumberland, the king’s representative. No documents dealing with the defence are extant,
but the testimony of the witnesses is unanimous, the details clear, and the course of events probable
in a town like Scarborough, noted until a much later date as being the lurking place of a set of
hardy, seafaring men, of piratical habits, whose defiance of international law constantly brought
Engiand into trouble. News was brought to Scarborough of the rising in Essex, and on
23 June 1381 the town was in a tumult. ; :

For two days preparation went on amongst the insurgents; then a band of rioters, numbering
five hundred, under the leadership of Robert Galoun, a shoemaker and a panier-man_ being
prominent in the crowd, rushed through the town. In order to distinguish each other, they all
wore white caps decorated with red tails. ;

Their attacks were directed entirely against the wealthier classes. Their chief motive seems
to have been the desire of plunder, though doubtless opportunities of satisfying private grudges
were seized. The houses of the principal townsmen were surrounded, and in several cases serious
damage done. Some of the leading citizens were hurried to prison, and only allowed their liberty
when they had taken a solemn oath of fidelity to the rioters and to the commonalty of England. The
tumult increased in violence, and the streets were filled with crowds of rowdies.’ John
Stokwith incensed the rioters in a special degree. He was seized, ignominiously dragged through
the principal street followed by a hooting mob, and finally lodged in prison. After £10
had been extorted from him, he was taken before a mob tribunal, some of whom wished to behead,
others to hang him, but the majority wished for his money, not his life. He was allowed to go
after a bond for £100 had been extorted from him and several other probi homines. But he was
rearrested the following day (29 June). Henry de Rooston, his father-in-law, promised that
anyone who had claims against John Stokwith would be paid, if they brought their demands to him,
even if he had to sell his lands, houses, goods, and chattels to satisfy the claims. Stokwith, however,
came to William Marche, a prominent rioter, and in the most abject manner entreated him for the
love of God and sake of charity to grant him his life. These appeals the rioters disregarded, but
they yielded tothe temptation of an additional bribe of 40s., and Stokwith was allowed to go. But
riot, rebellion, defiance of royal dictates, was the normal condition of Scarborough; in the first year
of the reign of Edward II the poorer class there brought an action against the richer class, in the
court of Exchequer, complaining that they were being robbed of their prescriptive rights to have a
voice in the election of the town officials.8 Probably they got no redress, for in 1356 the Letters
Patent providing for the government of the town make no allusion to any assemblage of the whole
populace to elect the officers, but clearly show that the elections had practically been seized by the
upper class ; ‘ Bailiffs and all others of the borough, fit for the common officers thereof, be chosen by
the oath of certain persons, chosen out of the thirty-six, with the consent of the poor and middle
sort.’ °

The Church seems to have upheld the party of order, for William de Manby was seized by
the rebels because he refused to join the marauders, who had attacked several men taking refuge in
the church of St. Mary. Robert de Aclom, the town bailiff, had been sheltered by the Franciscans:
the rebels attacked the monastery, broke down the doors, and dragged out the bailiff and threatened
to hang him unless he gave them 20 marks. He, moved by the fear of death, did their
bidding. Nor was he the only official victim ; all the royal officers were deposed, and creatures of
the insurgents’ choice put in their place. But the rising was futile, though even as late as 12 July
the tenants of Alice de Wakefield took advantage of the disturbed state of the district and refused to
pay the rent they had been accustomed to pay. By 18 October 1382 the town was once more at
peace, the king issued a general pardon, from which forty-two people were excepted, and a fine of
£266 13s. 4d, was exacted. The ringleader, Robert Galoun, and his chief followers seem to have
escaped any very serious penalties, though their pardons were delayed for several years."

In York the revolt seems to have followed the same lines as in Beverley. The final item that
occupied the attention of the Parliament of 1380-1 was the ‘horrible chose’ that had taken place

° Pat. 5 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 17d. * W. Cunningham, op. cit. 392.
7 «Cum magna multitudine hominum vocatorum rowtes,’
°C. W. Colby, ‘The Growth of Oligarchy in English Towns,’ Engl. Hist. Rev. v, 646.
* Rep. of Municipal Corporations Com. 1835, pt. iii, p. 1713.
1 Pat. 6 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 30, printed in Réville, op. cit.; Close, 6 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 4, printed in
Réville, op. cit. " Reville, op. cit. App. 256.

444

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HIST ORY

: i ad been once more
in the city of York.!? John de Gisburn, who had been mayor a I 37. 2 bee 3 73s - a eee
meats oa te ae fe eecnsas aap anne gildhall They broke the windows,

the city, and rushed armed with hatchets an _T roke
ie an achanee and made Simon oF ey cae : be ar Lae ies eve
of the good people of the city,* who only yielded under tear o Oh ai aaa ans
ordinance that when the bell sounded, whether at night or day, the citizens 2
proclaim new ordinances, contrary alike bcs laws of the a br ee ee ee nar aer

tter was ordered to be investigated by a commission unde :

fa of York, and in the nee time twenty-four of the most a . the pa ee
were commanded to appear before the king and his council in Westminster. ig oe :
forwarded to the Council the sworn deposition of witnesses, drawn up oe : irec sae :
Quixley, who still retained his office, although after a period of hesitation he had thrown him
on to the side of the communitas. According to this evidence, John Gisburn, tired or pris ea
support from the Government, had with various armed followers attacked Quixley’s a pret
at Bootham Bar. ‘They had forced their way into York and continued to distur the city.
Various charges are brought against Gisburn, that he was a thief, a friend of nie, a
coiner of false money.” But counter-accusations were brought against Quixley, who was sal
have seized and imprisoned innocent men, not allowing them to be set at liberty until they had pai
considerable sums of money, and had given bond for debts they owed to various inhabitants of
York.8 A commission was issued to Quixley 3 March 1382 as mayor to compel these rioters,
who had broken down the closes, wall, and doors of the hospital of St. Leonard, York, and of the
King’s Chantry near York Castle, and a wall within the habitation of the house of the Friar
Preachers, York, to repair their handiwork, and 120 people, principally mercers, butchers,
pinners, carpenters, coverlet weavers, drapers, tailors, armourers, saddlers, porters, sheathers,
goldsmiths, barbers, girdlers, shoemakers, glovers, were bound over on pain of a forfeiture of £100
each to keep the peace. Among them were two of Quixley’s chief adherents, Thomas de pa
and William de Hornby, who had been attacked by Gisburn and his followers at Bootham Bar.
The Council evidently recognized that Quixley was not a trustworthy tool, for he had to pledge
himself in Chancery at Westminster in £5,000 of his lands and chattels to execute this commission.”
On 18 October 1382 a general pardon was issued, for which the people of York had to pay
1,000 marks.

Industrial matters in all the chief Yorkshire towns were rigidly supervised by the craft gilds for
many centuries. ‘he ordinances of the Hull weavers for 1490 are still extant 7! ; the records of
Beverley and Pontefract bear ample evidence of the supremacy of the power of these industrial
organizations. There seems to be very good grounds for thinking that the Towneley Mystery
plays were acted in Wakefield; if so, the gilds there must have been both numerous and influential.
Unfortunately, none of their ordinances or gild books have come to light, and it is therefore
impossible to write definitely on the subject as far as Wakefield is concerned.” As, however, there
is a general similarity in all gild ordinances, and as no town in England was more completely
controlled by highly organized gilds than York, the details of gild life that can be compiled from
the materials extant for that city will be approximately true of the other towns of Yorkshire. The
ordinances of the 14th-century craft gilds are enrolled in one of the earliest and most valuable
works in the possession of the city. It is entitled ‘Liber diversorum memorandorum civitatem
Ebor’ tangencium.’ The first entry is dated 1376, the last 1490, but the contents are not in
strictly chronological order, and several of the memoranda are retrospective. The gild regulations
are often undated, but from internal evidence they belong chiefly to the last decade of the 14th and
the first half of the 15th century. It is, however, probable that the earlier ones are verbatim
copies of the first attempts made to reduce the customary regulations of the craftsmen into
written form. -The first reference to the gild occurs early in the volume; in the year 1376 the
city rents are entered, among others a tenement paying an annual rent of 2s. is mentioned, and the
fact stated that three of the pageants of the Corpus Christi are placed there. The word ‘pagine’
must refer to the stage and properties of the pageant. The first ordinances referred to are those of
‘the buklermakers and shethers,’ the object of the regulation was restraining work on Sundays and
feast days. Neither these ordinances nor those immediately following, of the bakers, are dated, but it

” R. Parl. iii, 96, 97. * F, Drake, op. cit. 361. “ R. Parl. iii, 96.

* The number is given as twenty. Close, 4 Ric. II, m. 27, in Réville, op. cit. 174.

* Coram Rege R. Mich. 5 Ric. II, m. 11, 35, 3543 printed in Réville, op. cit. 178, 179.
“From this Mr. Oman deduces that Gisburn was Master of the Mint (Great Revolt, 146), but this is
improbable. *® Close, 5 Ric. II, m. 25 ; Réville, op. cit. 180.

” Pat. 5 Ric. Il, pt. ii, m. 23d. ” Pat. 6 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 63 cf. R. Parl, iii
J, M. Lambert, Two Thousand Years of Gild Life 204-7. ieee ils

™ H. M. Peacock, ‘Towneley, Widkirk or Wakefield Plays,’ Yorks. Arch. Four. xv, 94-103.
445

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

is obvious from their position in the book and from the handwriting that they belong to the late
14th century. It is not until 30 December 1395 that a full set of ordinances, dated and with a
complete list of the members, is found. Although there is no reference to the fact in the preamble
to the regulations, doubtless their presence in the Memorandum Book of the city council was due to
their having been brought to the mayor and twelve probi homines for ratification. The absence of
mention of the civic authorities is exceptional, the usual formula being that the regulations were made
by the assent of the ‘ meir et autres bonez gentez,’ here however ‘ par awys et assent des mestres du dit
artifice’ is the only reference to the authority by which the ordinances were endorsed. Of the twenty-
two ‘ bowers’ forming the gild, six are absent from the freemen’s roll ; this, however, is not surprising,
for a man who appears as a gild member under the name ‘ Laurencius Bower’ quite possibly is enrolled
in the freemen’s list under his inherited not his trade name. ‘The numerous liberties too in York
possibly account for the absence of some names, for although the question of the rights and
privileges of the inhabitants of the liberties has not yet been thoroughly investigated there seems no
doubt that they could trade without taking up the freedom of the city. ‘Robertus Cristendome’ is
apparently missing from the roll, but as a ‘Robertus Christiane, bougher,’ figures, it seems probable
that some scribal error accounts for the omission. A William de Crull, fisher, was not enrolled
under this name, but as William Brone de Crull. The ordinances written in French follow the
general type, night and Sunday work is prohibited, apprentices are limited to one to each master,
and a seven years’ apprenticeship is insisted upon. A special feature of the bowyers’ regulations is
that minute directions are laid down with regard to the sale of arrows at fairs, a bowyer is only

allowed to take a limited number of arrows to the fair at Chester, all shops are to be closed during
fairs, but no arrows are to be left to be sold by other people after the fair is over. Each gild had

its own peculiar enactments, and though seven years’ apprenticeship and the prohibition of Sunday

trading are generic, the bowyers had a special clause that all members of the gild should be English

born, physically flawless, and loyal and faithful men.*? The exclusion of the alien is not unusual,

though generally he is admitted under restrictions. As, however, the armourers had also a regula-

tion ‘that no man of the said craft shall take no man to servaunt nor to prentyce but him that is

one Inglishman born up payn of 40s., to be paid in the manere and forme aforewritten,’” it is

possible that more precautions were thought necessary when the articles manufactured played a

part in the country’s defence. On the other hand the barbers and surgeons expressly recognize

the presence of aliens and foreigners, and require them to be contributory to the pageant, the light,

and to share other burdens. Skinners having peculiar temptations, when furs are sent to them to

be repaired, are heavily fined if detected in using old fur for patching.?® Women are seldom alluded

to specifically, but the cap-makers have an ordinance that imposes the same fine upon homme ou

femme.*” Women, however, must have played an important part in foundry work, for a certain

Gyles de Bonoyne is allowed, contrary to all gild tradition, to have two apprentices at the same time

as he had no wife *8 ; the saucemakers, too, complain bitterly that the skinners and their wives make

Paris candles, thus infringing their rights. Still, few women appear in the lists of members of the

various gilds often given in the York Memorandum Book; a glover, Agnes Kepewyk, and a

parchment maker, Isabel de Morland, are the only two found in the York documents. It is, how-

ever, obvious from the entries concerning the celebration of the festival of Corpus Christi, that there

were many more gilds in York than those whose ordinances are entered in the city record.

The number of plays given in the Ashburnham MS., the text used by Miss TToulmin Smith in
her York ALystery Plays, is forty-eight, but the York Memorandum Book, which contains a list of
the plays with the crafts which brought them out, gives under the date 1415 fifty-one plays, and
a later list fifty-seven.*° When it is remembered that often several crafts joined together to produce
one play, the number of craft gilds in York cannot have fallen far short of eighty; in the list
eighty-two different trades are mentioned,” but probably some of those had already so few repre-
sentatives that they were unimportant factors in the real commercial life of the city. The gilds
varied considerably in size ; of those of which a record can be found, several have only six or seven
members, but the tailors number 128, the cordwainers fifty-nine, the ‘tapiters’ fifty-seven, the fullers
thirty, the bowyers twenty-two at the end of the 14th century. Even when it is granted that
several crafts were obsolete even in 1415, the list remains sufficiently comprehensive to have covered
every detail of York’s industrial life. It includes ‘ tannours, plasterers, cardemakers, fullers, coupers,
armourers, gaunters, shipwrightes, possoners (fysshe mongers), mariners, parchemyners (makers and

* Thid. fol. 23. * Thid. fol. 30. ® Tbid. fol. 424. * Ibid. fol. 604.

* Miss Toulmin Smith has printed the 1416 list, op. cit. Introd. p. xviii ; cf. Drake, op. cit. App. xxx, xxxi.
R. Davies, York Rec. 233. But the author’s work is founded on a personal transcript of the Memorandum Book,
the first volume of which is in the press, and the second volume, which includes the list, will appear shortly.

* York Memo. Bk. old numeration, fol. ccxli to ccxlv ; new, 252 to 254.

446

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

sellers of parchment), bukbynders, hosyers, spicers, pewterers, founders, tylers, chaundellers,
orfeuers, goldbeters, monemakers, masons, marsshals, girdellers, naylers, sawiers, spuriers, lorymers,
barbours, vynters, finers (smiths), coutureurs, irenmangers, plummers, patenmakers, pouchemakers,
hotellers, capmakers, skynners, cuttellers, bladesmyths, shethers, scalers, buklermakers, horners,
bakers, cordwaners, bowers, flecchers, tapisers, couchers, littesters, cukes, waterleders, tielmakers,
milners, turnours, hayresters (workers in horse hair ?) botlers (bowlmakers ?), toundours, pynners,
latoners, payntours, bouchers, pulters (poulterers), sellers (saddlers), verrours (glaziers), fuystours
(joiners, makers of saddle trees ?), carpenters, wyredrawers, broggours (brokers ?), wolpakkers,
escrieuveners, luminers, questors (pardoners ?), dubbers (furnishers of old cloth), talliaunders (tailors),
potters, drapers, lynwevers, wevers of woollen, hostilers, and mercers.’ ®? It is sufficiently formidable
to suggest the idea that the population of York during the mediaeval period has been considerably
underrated.

On 28 April 1394 an unusually large meeting of the city council was held ; the mayor, the
bailiffs, the prob: homines and the communitas, were all present. It was then decided that all the
pageants of Corpus Christi should be acted in the places where they were accustomed to be played

- of old time (antiguitus), and in case this order was disobeyed the recalcitrant craft was to be
’ fined 6s. 84.58

, In 1397 so great was the fame of the York pageants that Richard II came to the city for the
purpose of seeing them.** But dissatisfaction was still rife, because the plays which were produced
at such great expense were repeated so often and at such small distances apart that the effect was
marred, The civic authorities then decided that in the future they should only be given in twelve
places :—

At the gates of the Priory of the Holy Trinity in Micklegate.
At the door of Robert Harpham.

At the door of John de Gyseburn.

. At Skeldergatehend and Northstrethend.

. At the end of Conyngstrete towards the Castlegate.
. At the end of Jubbergate.

. At the door of Henry Wyman in Conyngstrete.

. At the end of Conyngstrete near the Common Hall.
At the door of Adam del Brigg.

10. At the gate of the Minster of the Blessed Peter.

11. At the end of Gyrdlergate in Petergate.

12. Upon the Pavement.*

COW ANPWN

From 1164, when the first York gild, the weavers, is heard of,°* down to 1832, when the
Merchant Adventurers were shorn of their last vestige of power, the gild movement was a factor
that had to be reckoned with in the industrial development of the city. During the early stages of
national growth there is little doubt that the gilds, with their highly-specialized organization, their
high standard of workmanship, their discouragement of competition, their insistence on proper
training, did much to promote mercantile progress. But their influence during the 15th and
16th centuries was probably at the root of the decay of many of the old Yorkshire towns.
From the broader outlook of the prosperity of Yorkshire as opposed to the prosperity of its few
towns, there can be little doubt that the influence of the gilds was, unconsciously certainly, on the
side of progression. The size of Yorkshire, its late development, the isolated character of some
of the districts, necessitated the application of some strong stimulus, before the county as a whole
could be opened up. By a too rigid enforcement of gild rules, enterprise and skilled industry was
driven from the cities into the country districts. The growth of Halifax, Leeds, and Bradford more
than counterbalanced the decay of York, Beverley, Ripon, and Pontefract.

The 15th century may be regarded as a transition period in the economic history of
Yorkshire. All the forces were at work which were during the 16th century to produce a
complete upheaval in the industrial life of the people ; the attention of the territorial landlord was
concentrated on the dynastic quarrels ; the attention of the Church on preserving its own power
intact ; the burgher class was left to follow the pursuit of wealth unhampered by its ecclesiastical
or feudal superior. Civic strife was rampant in all the Yorkshire towns whose records are available :
but apparently these disturbances were not incompatible with the slow though steady growth of
wealth among the bulk of the people.

The first half of the 16th century is especially important in treating of the economic expansion
of Yorkshire. The rich monasteries owned so much land that their suppression gave the wealthy

* York Memo. Bk. loc. cit. *® Ibid. fol. 18. * R. Davies, op. cit. 230.
* York Memo. Bk. fol. 1874; F. Drake, Ebor. App. xxxii.
°° Pipe R. 10 Hen. II (Pipe R. Soc.), 12 ; York Memo. Bk. fol. 143.

447

‘ A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

woollen merchants, who had amassed their fortunes while their noble neighbours were losing gee
in supporting dynastic quarrels, an opportunity to found a new landed class. The ea hen of a
strong personal government for the lax and distracted rule of the Lancastrians and Yorkists gave to
Yorkshire what it sorely needed, a period of peace to develop its resources. ;

The civic strife, which had disgraced the Yorkshire towns during the 14th and 15th centuries,
which had, in fact, often been encouraged for party purposes, met with no support in the new order
of things. How tentatively the revolt in York in 1382 had been handled by royal authority has
already been seen ; a somewhat similar occurrence in 1517 met with different treatment. : On the
death of the Mayor of York, John Shaw, ‘gret variaunce, contraversie, trowble and debate’ arose as
to the choice of his successor. ‘ Quarelles, assaults, affrays and mysdemeanours ’ ensued ; many of the
aldermen, citizens, and commonalty were indicted, and the matter became so serious that the cases
were removed out of the provincial courts into the court of Chancery. William Neleson, one of
the York aldermen, who proved contumacious when he appeared before the council, was committed
to the Fleet. The death of a second alderman complicated matters still more. A commission was
appointed under Edmund, the Abbot of the monastery of St. Mary, ‘to take order and direcon for
the weal of the said cytye.’ Both candidates for the place of alderman were set aside, and ‘two
other substantiall and discrete persones put in their romes.’ But the people of York refused to obey
the commission, and chose John Norman and William Cure for aldermen, and William Neleson,
who was at the time in the Fleet Prison, as mayor. The royal wrath was excited. Nor was
Henry VIII the man to hesitate. York had been ina state of disorder long enough ; Letters Patent
were at once dispatched to put an end to the scandal, and the citizens were enjoined to accept John
Dodgeson as mayor until the next election, and to substitute for John Norman and William Cure as
aldermen two ‘substantiall and discret persones.’ .

Wolsey also wrote on 11 March exhorting the city to render due obedience and avoid worse
dangers. The submission of the city was instant and abject. John Dodgeson was accepted as
mayor, and Paul Gylde and Simon Vicaer were elected in place of Norman and Cure.”

It seems probable that the disorders and tumults which gave Henry an excuse for interfering
in the affairs of York were really caused by the desire of the various important craft gilds to have a
share in the government of the city. Thus Henry in his high-handed proceedings knew that he
had the popular will at his back. On 18 July of the year following, he granted to the citizens of
York a common council. This council was to consist of forty-one members, chosen, two from each
of the thirteen principal craft gilds and one from each of the fifteen secondary craft gilds ; they had im-
portant powers of nominating the candidates for the various civic offices and general advisory powers.*8
But the system created friction, and in 1562 the leader of the common council, Miles Cooke, and the
lord mayor had come to serious disagreements. ‘The quarrel originated in a suggestion that the
burgesses should, on account of the dearness of provisions, have increased payment for ‘their accus-
tomed diett.’*® The common council refused the concession, but the mayor and twenty-four
persisted in voting them 6s. 8d. a day “ in spite of their remonstrance. This was only the beginning
of the storm. Not the least important duty of the mayor and the twenty-four was the supervision of
the city gilds. The two searchers of the gild of ‘mylnars’ had assembled their fellow-gildmen at
St. Antony’s Hall, and they had agreed amongst themselves, without the consentof the lord mayor, that
they would take no money from the citizens for grinding, but that each ‘mylnar’ should have a toll
dish and exact payment in kind, contrary to the ancient custom of the city. In 1530 it had been
enacted by the Lord Mayor’s Court ‘that none of the millers of the city should take above ob. for
grendyng of a bushell of corne.’ ** John Robson, one of the millers, confessed that he had reported
that the mayor had consented to the innovation, ‘to the great dissenson between hym and the
commons of this city.” The two searchers, Brown and Carter, and Robson were all committed
to prison.

But the commons had found a brave, if indiscreet, champion in the leader of the common
council, Miles Cooke, though it seemed as if more tumults were to disturb the city. Nor was the
dislike to paying toll in kind instead of by a fixed sum of money an idle prejudice; later a case

occurs which probably is only an example of what the people had suffered at the hands of the
millers :—

Further more it is ordered and agreed by the sayd presens forasmoche as by dewe proves it appreth
that Thomas Shaw farmer of the Tolle in the pavement hath a great space used exacton upon the
Kyngs people in takynge unlawe and excessyve tolne and specially by a countrafayt disshe in which he

* York Munic. Rec. ix, fol. 87~g1. Edward IV had dealt with the same difficulty in 1464 ; Foedera,
v (2), (Hague Ed.) ; cf. Select Cases in Ct. of Star Chamber (Selden Soc.), 25, civ.
=F. Drake, op. cit. 207.
* York Munic. Rec. xxiii, fol. 754, 21 Dec. 1562 “° Ibid. fol
; ; , , - fol. 764, 29 Dec. 1562.
“ Thid. fol. 79a, 13 Jan. 1562. ® Ibid. xi, fol. 69, 19 Jan. 1530. ;

448

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

craftily caused a pece of an other old tolne disshe beyng sealed w'h the seale therunto appoynted to be
framed and glewed thereto, And after that bothe he and his wife disobedyently and unfyttyngly hath
used theymselfs within the said citie. The sayd Thomas therfor shalbe punysshed for his sayd
extorton offense and disobedynce by imprisonment in forme followyng that is to say be putt in the cage
in the sayd pavement three severall markett dayes from tenne of the clock of every of the said dayes
unto one of the clock at afternoone. And soo to begynne on Saturday next and than on Tewysday
and Thursday the next weke and then he and his wife shall submytt themselves to M' Shadlock
Alderman and desire him to be good maistre to theym and sayyve them specially for that his wif
wyss’ a vengeance of hym wth other desptefull wordes and also that M' Shadlock shall deliver unto

hym toln disshes lawfully sealed from tyme to tyme as he shall nede theym.*

The dispute shows clearly that, in the years between the granting of the charter by Henry VIII
and the early years of the reign of Elizabeth, the craft gilds had fallen into decay, and that the
commons felt that their powers of controlling the government of the city were being gradually
weakened. They marshalled their case with considerable skill. The dearness of provisions was a
factor in their final success, for during a period of dearth, both central and provincial governments
were chary of inflaming popular discontent that was always smouldering at such times. The
language in which the commons drew up their petition was singularly humble :—

We the said comon counsell and other the comonars of our humble seute desyre yor Lordship
and worshypfull brethren with other yor Lordshippes counsell to have nowe reformaton had for 40/4.
that Girdlington did gyve to the comons and freemen of this citie and for that cause that if any free-
man will desyre to borowe of the same money upon they are pledges not to be denyed so that all the
same money may be used alwayes accordyng to the Girdlyngton will.

Also we desyre that from hensforth nothyng to be lette that belongith to the comons but that all
the comons before maye have knowledge of it, that it may be lette to the most wallowe for the profit
of the citie of that thyng that the comons may forbeare and nothing to be allowed that belongeth to
the comons but that is sealed with the comon seale and for this we desire youe of yo" goodnes nowe
that this may be inacted

Also we desire that our milnars shall not take no mowter at all but one penny for a bushell hard
corne and for malt iid. a quarter and not above as was used when the corne was better cheape and for
the same we desyre reformacon

And also where the xiii crafts and xv crafts named in the charter hath voyces for the electon of
the Mayor and Sheryffe and certeyne of the said occupacon be decayed so that there is none of them
to have voyces our desyre ys that for suche occupacons as is decayed that so many other at the renewyng
of the chartre may be putin the charter to have voyces.

The only reply given to the petitioners was that the lord mayor and his brethren would
peruse the said articles ‘at tyme convenyent.’ But Miles Cooke, in the name of the commoners,
refused to proceed to the election of the mayor unless the articles were agreed to. ;

‘Wherefore in avoydyng further clamor of the rest of the comons they gave them faire wordes
willyng the comon clerke to make assemblant to entre them as confirmed and stablisshed.’ “* ‘The
mayor was elected ; then the common council discovered that they had been ‘tricked. They possibly
felt that a change of leadership was advisable, for Miles Cooke disappears for the time, and John
Myddleton and Richard Aynley, vintners, took charge of the articles. The lord mayor refused
to be dictated to, but evidently the two vintners were less choleric than Miles Cooke. ‘They in
right humble wyse besechyd my seyd 1. Mayor at his pleasure’ to appoint a date when he would
read the said petitions. He ‘seeing the conformitie and obedyaunce of the said comon counsel’
passed their requests ; only reserving to himself the right to deal with common rents under xxs.
without consultation with the commoners, but the rest of their requests were passed uncondition-
ally. Miles Cooke, who had been committed to the Kidcote ‘for certain unfyttinge and oppro-
brious wordes,’ *® spoken against one of the aldermen, was released on giving bond for future good
behaviour.” How far the civic authorities fulfilled the promise that they gave it is impossible to say.
But beneficial as the institution of a strong central government was to the general development of
industrial and commercial Yorkshire, the consequent concentration of parliamentary and court life
in London decreased the prestige of the northern capital, already weakened by the decay of ecclesiastical
power. During the 16th century complaints are rife against the ruthless way in which the London
merchants strove to monopolize mercantile enterprise and by unfair competition steal trade
from the Yorkshiremen. Although Yorkshire as a whole was progressing, the older towns were
suffering from the exodus of their more energetic and enterprising inhabitants into the country

® York Munic. Rec. xx, fol. 992, Apr. 1552.
“ Ibid. xxiii, fol. 814, Feast of St. Mary Abbatis.

Thid. fol. 814. ee ee
Ibid. fol. 88, 26 Jan. 1562. 54 18 Jan. 1562.

3 449 . 57

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

districts. In 1561 the civic authorities dwelt with great bitterness on this fact, in the report on the
state of trade given to the Lord President and Council of the North.

Morover one Richard Marshall of the said citie Marchant did latley sett up drapyng in this citie
and had one woollen loome there of his owne but because he found no gaynes at it he hath left of.
And the cause of the decay of the said weavers and loomes for woollen within the sayd cite as I dso
understand and learne is the lak of cloth makyng in the said citie as was in old tyme accustomed
whiche is nowe encreased and used in the townes of Halyfax Leedes and Wakefield, for that not onely
the comoditie of the water mylns is ther nigh hande but also the poore folke as speynners, carders, and
other necessary work folkes for the said webbyng may ther bysyde ther hand labo" have Rye, fyre, and
other releif good cheape which is in this citie very deare and wantyng.

The gilds that drove the workers from the towns, where they were working under unsatisfactory
conditions, into the open country, where a mechanical power ran past their doors, where food was
cheap and firewood plentiful, certainly hastened indirectly the development of the barren West
Riding regions into the most highly industrial and densely populated part of England.

But not only did the gild officials drive away the workers impatient of control, they maintained
the policy they had adopted in the early days of their organization, and continued to enforce regu-
lations against the settlement of strangers and aliens in the co-operate towns. The barber-surgeons
revised their ordinances in 1592 and 1679, the alien clause remained unaltered,” a fee of 65. 8d. was
exacted from all strangers wishing to practise. Whether from the superior education of the members,
or from the absence of competition, it is difficult to say, but there was always a considerable foreign
element amongst the York medical men. Other gilds had more stringent rules. The York
minstrels were not so widely known as the minstrels of Beverley, who claimed to have originated in
the time of Athelstan. The well-known pillar erected by the Beverley Gild is one of the
many interesting features of the church of St. Mary. On the capital are the figures in stone of
four minstrels clad in short coats, painted blue, with red stockings and yellow girdles. They carry
various instruments, a treble and bass flute, a side drum and a tabor. The Beverley men, although
they objected to a foreigner or stranger minstrel remaining longer than one fortnight in their midst,*!
were not so determined in their opposition as the York Minstrels, who had a rule that

No maner of forryner of what condition he be occupie any minstrells singinge or plaieing upon
anie instrument within anie parishe within this cittie or franches thereof where anie churche holidaeis
or dedicaton daes halowed or kept within the same parishe or annie Brotherheads or freemans dinner
made or kept within the same cittie or franchesse thereof upon payne that everie such forayne minstrell
after monyton to him geven by the maister or searchers to pay for every time that he shalbe founde so
doinge contrarie to this Acte 35. 44."

The gilds of the metal-workers had extremely rigid rules dealing with the alien question,
the pinners and wiredrawers re-enacted their ordinances in 1592. They carefully distinguish
between the ‘ forreyners ’ who might be Englishmen from another part of the country and the alien.

And whereas the 23 October 1425 it was ordeyned that none of the sayd Crafte should take anye
Alyen of anye Naton to worke he should teache him in the said Crafte upon payne of xxs. to the
Chamber and xxs. to the sayd crafte to be paid by the Maister that should putt him to the same Crafte
as ofte tyme as he doth it—which order being perused It is now agreed that the same shalbe continued
and remain in force.®

The pewterers had a similar clause, ‘that no Master of the said Crafte shall take anie alien not
borne within the realme to be or serve him as his apprentice upon payne of forfeiture of x".? The
most ardent tariff reformers could not wish for more stringent rule than one enjoyned on the foun-
derers in 1574," ‘ That none of the said crafte shall buye anie waires of any man out of this realme
as candlestyck, chawfyndissis under payne to forfayte for every pece that he shall so buye as aforesaid.’
As well as these enactments against aliens, sometimes the gilds drew up special clauses against
individual bodies of men, whom they regarded as antagonistic to themselves. The tailors and drapers

“ York Munic. Rec. xxiii, fol. 20a, 8 June 1561.

“ Merchant Taylors’ MSS. These 16th-century regulations were transcribed some years ago from a MS.
containing a miscellaneous collection of gild ordinances at that time in the possession of the Merchant Taylors’
Company.

See above.

| G. Oliver, op. cit. 557-9; R. C. Hope, ‘Notes on the Minstrels’ Pillar,’ East Riding Antig. Soc.
Trans. 1895, pp. 67, 68.

*? The seventh clause of their new enactments, Merchant Taylors’ MSS. ‘The Ancient Ordynances of the
Muscycyons comonlie called the Minstrelles’, 1578.

* Merchant Taylors’ MSS, Pinners and Wiredrawers, 1592. * Tbid. fol. 246.

450

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

were especially jealous of the Kendal cloth-weavers. They inserted a clause when their ordinances
‘were reformed that

Kendaill men yt bringeth wollen clothe to this citie to sell from hensforth they selle in grosse in
the sayd Thursday Markett or Comon hall and not to goe hawkynge and sell in any other place upon
paine of forfaiture of their clothes as is abovesayd.™

But lest this rule should bear hardly upon an industrious and worthy class of men they made an
exception in favour of the rural weaver :

Provyded allwais that theis ordinances aforesayd or any article of the same be not prejudiciall ne hinderinge
to any husbandmen or other poor creatures of ye cuntrie beinge unfranchiside yt makethe a pece or 1i of
wollen clothe in a yeare within his owne howse and bringithe to this citie to sell the sayd cloith or
clothes by retaille upon ye pavement or any other place within the citie and suburbs of the same theis
ordinances or any article thereof notw‘hstanding.”

The most trivial details of workmanship were supervised by the gild officials, and bad workmanship
confiscated. The tailors took special pains to keep upa high standard; cases that would in the present
day be brought into a court of law were then adjusted by the searchers.

If there happen any complainte to be maide ofane garment brought affore the sayd four sershers
for to searche after yt be wrought that then the maker of the said garment shalbe brought afore the sayd
sershers for the lowsinge of the said garment and yf the said same garment may be mended of the same
stuffe then he shall have it agayne for to mend, and he shall sett suertie to bringe againe the same
garment affore the said searshers and yf yt cannot be amended of the same stuffe then the partye that
owd yt to be recompensed for yt at the syght of the master and searchers.”

The haberdashers, feltmakers, and cappers enjoin upon their searchers to make diligent search
of ‘all waires as shalbe made and trymed within the cittye, and also for dying of feltes or hatts,
and whatsoever waires shalbe founde unlesse fullye made or naughtelye (sic) colored, trymed, or
died, the persons who so doth make dye or tryme thes feltes shal paye for everie felt or hatt 6d.

These ordinances were sometimes put in force against the gild officials, for the warden of the
tapiters who had ‘blendyd hare and wolle togydders and working the same in coverletts,’ thus
defrauding the king’s people, was fined 40s. and discharged of ‘hys romes of sercher.’ °°

But the power of the gilds was seriously curtailed by the court of the lord mayor. The
civic authorities could refuse to ratify their ordinances, and thus render them nugatory. They
received half the proceeds of the fines inflicted for the infringement of rules; in cases of dispute
between the gild members they could call the disputants before them, and against their arbitration
there was no appeal. As early as 1519 they claimed the right to punish the breakers of gild ordin-
ances, though it is doubtful whether the by-law was ever put in force.

Also it is agreed by the said presence that from hensefurth no serchers of the occupacion of
Cordwyners and Taillors nor of none other occupacon within this city suburbs and libertye of the
same shall have the correcton and punysshment of the defauts done and commited concerning the sayd
occupacons or any of them. But the same defaute shalbe punnysshed and redressed by the maier for
the time beyng and his brethren. ®

The increasing unpopularity of the trade gilds during the 16th century strengthened the
hands of the civic authority, and early in the 17th century they are found almost invariably in
opposition. ‘The chief men on the city council were members of the two great companies, the
Merchant Adventurers and the Eastland Merchants ; they were men doing a large foreign trade
they had travelled much, and probably saw that the gild regulations were really seriously hampering
English commerce. So long as the foreign trade of England was in the hands of the Hansards
the home market was the only concern of Englishmen. Many of the regulations of the gilds
were admirably adapted for the supply of a limited market with a well-wrought article. In fact
the gilds discouraged trade even with their own countrymen; the haberdashers had a regulation
that no wares should be sold to any stranger or foreigner before four or six members of the ild
had been consulted, and in case they were willing to give within 6d. a dozen of the price eet
the stranger, the seller was obliged to accept their offer.*! But the rapid development of freien

* York Munic. Rec. xx, fol. 632, 27 Oct. 1551 6 Ibid. fol. 634 57 Thi
, ) \. . fol. 634. Ibid. fol. 622
8 Merchant Taylors’ MSS. The Ancient Ordinance of the Com d i
Feltmakers, and Cappers, xxiiii July 1605. ala a
* York Munic. Rec. xviii, fol. 1304, 1314, 21 Oct. 1547.
® Tbid. ix, fol. 101, 10 Mar. 1519. 8! Merchant Taylors’ MSS. ut sup. item 10.

451

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

companies, the increased demand for English
merchanted in York, and shipped off from
o the people the fact that the stint of pro-

trade under the fostering influences of the two trading
cloth, which was largely produced in the West Riding,
Hull to the Baltic and Low Countries, brought home to t
duction, by curtailing the number of apprentices, by refusing to allow able workmen to work un a
they were enrolled in one of the gilds, was a serious hindrance to commerce. ‘Thus early in the
17th century the York Council constantly interfered to force the hands of the city gilds to admit
strangers. In 1608 Richard Foster, stationer, was made a freeman at a reduced rate, and only
required to pay 335. or 20s. a year because there was not any freeman of his occupation in York.
The following year William Esbrigge (Eskirk in the Freemen’s list), milloner, was forgiven
£5 135. 4d. of the fee because there were but few of the same company in the city.” Mark Bell,
a coverlet weaver, a trade of which at one time York had the monopoly, ‘ was admitted for xx"
markes in regard that there is but few of the same companie in this cittie that xx"* nobles shalbe
rebated and forgyven hym.’ ;

Stephen Brittayn, organ-maker, was admitted on the same terms, “because there was not anie
in this citie of the same occupation.’ ®

In a case that occurred in 1612 the council showed admirable sense. ‘ Diverse of the poorest
sorte’ of the company of haberdashers complained that a certain John Baites, who was free
neither of the city nor the company, had begun to work at the trade. In defence, those who
encouraged him said that John Baites could do work that none of the complainants could do. ‘The
mayor and aldermen then ordered both John Baites and the petitioners to send in apiece of work
“such as is saide none of the saide company can work,’ so that the court could themselves arrive at
a right decision.°° Nothing more was heard of the matter until more than a year later,’ when it
was decided that as

the Companie of Haberdashers and Feltmakers are at present a great Companie and that
manie of them are poore men greatlie charged and have no means whereby to mainteyn themselves
and ther families but onely ther said occupaton and that the doeings of the said John Baites is
hurtfull to the free citizens of the said Companye and contrarye to the orders of the said Companye
and that it is thought not fitting that the said John Baites should live from his wife have enjoyned the
said John Baites within 14 daies nowe next coming to depart from this cittie and not after the same
tyme to work at the said occupaton within the said cittie or the suburbs or liberties thereof.

It is impossible to help suspecting that the unfortunate John Baites had been deluded into
staying in the city until his particular trade, the making of hatbands, had been learnt by some of
the haberdashers, and that he was turned adrift by the people who had first employed him as soon
as he had served their purpose.

In another matter the court seem to have had reasonable grounds for interfering with the
selfish policy of the gilds.

And whereas this court understanding that diverse occupatons and companies within this cittie
doe refuse to accept or receive anie yonge man to be free Brethren of ther occupatons or companics
which are admitted to the freedome of this cittie upon good causes except they doe paie unto the
companie whereof they are to be free a great some of money or make a breakfast dynner or supper to
the whole companie which hath bene to the utter [undoing] of diverse yonge men who have had
little store of money to sett up ther occupaton withall. It is therefore thought good that no occupa-
ton or companie within this cittie shall from henceforth take receive or exact of anie brother for his
admittance unto ther fellowshipp or companie in meate money or otherwise above xxs without the
consent of the Lord Maior of this cittie for the tyme being upon payne of x4s.™

As the civic authority had gradually superseded the gild authority during the 17th century,
newly organized gilds or gilds seeking reorganization sought to have their privileges confirmed by
the central, not the provincial authorities. Thus for the gild the company was substituted. The
most interesting example of this is the well-known society of the cutlers of Sheffield,® who
received their charter in 1624. But the history of that organization, beginning as it does with a
few rules issued by the lord of the manor, and later incorporated by Act of Parliament, cannot be
included with that of the gilds. Still, this tendency to substitute parliamentary for provincial
control was stoutly resisted by the ruling civic party in York. The gild of bakers, who on
account of the assize of bread always stood on the border line between a state-managed and a city-

° York Mun. Rec. xxxiii, fol. 151¢, 30 Jan. 1608.

Ibid. fol. 1584, 14 Mar. 1609. * Thid. fol. 1662, 5 July 1609.
° Ibid. fol. 1682, 14 July 1609. Cf. Freemen of York (Surt. Soc.), ii, 57.
8 Ibid. fol. 3052, 3 July 1612. * Thid. xxxiv, fol. 452, 18 Nov. 1614.

* Ibid. xxxiii, fol. 794, 8 July 1607. Cf. a similar enactment passed 30 Mar. 1604, xxxii, fol. 3202.
“° Mr. R. E. Leader has, in his invaluable The Sheffield Company of Cutlers, collected all the documents
concerning the Sheffield Company.

452

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

managed gild, made a fatal mistake in 1610. As a proof of the growing tendency to seck redress
at the hands of the Government, it is of sufficient importance to warrant quotation in full. The
bakers had evidently tried and failed to override the authority of the mayor and aldermen by an

appeal to the powers in London.
Petition of Bakers.

That whereas your humble petitioners The Companye of Bakers of the Cittie of Yorke have
since Lammas Last bene so delt withall and are as yet sore impoverished with severall prices imposed
upon us by this honourable court so that for want of a conscionable expositor we were forced to goo
to the Cittie of London to showe our griefs if it were possible to Mr. Sergiant Hutton our Recorder
or else Mr. Christopher Brooke his deputie or Mr. Alderman Askwith then Burgesses for our cittic of
whom we receyved large promises but founde no performancs but called knaves for complayninge to
the burgesses of my lord mayor (and therefore fare worse for it) although if my lord maior of
ignorance as he sometyme pretended and Mr. Halley of purpose as it nowe appeareth (by adding
affliction to affliction) have quite fallen awaie both from the equitie of that ancient statute for breade
and also from the manier of distributing the saide statute for ther white lofe. And ther ancient
custome of the boulted lofe used almost for fortie yeares but upon better consideraton as we supposed
at our return we were called to this honorable court wher we were willed to shew our greves
which we did that is to saie we entreated to be eased of the byelawe of xvilid

secondlie to be assissed by the printed assisse book

thirdlie to have the inn holders article amended or annihilated

fourthlie to have our book of ordinary executed

fiftlie to have the boulted loafe assessed after the wheaten loafe.

But the petition met with scant consideration at the hands of the mayor and his brethren,
who, considering that Thomas Wilson, who drew up the petition, used words not fitting to be
inserted in a petition, ‘whereby it appereth plainlie that he scorned this court,’ was called upon to
answer for his contumelious conduct at the next session.”

But the bakers’ company continued to hold its own in York for more than two centuries
after this episode. In 1779, when an attempt was made in Parliament to abolish apprenticeship, the
York bakers were the most active and virulent of its opponents; the effort was unsuccessful, though
interesting expressions of opinions on the subject were copied into the bakers’ ordinary at the time.
One of these shows clearly that the Apprenticeship Act was not really operative in many places.
The correspondent writes :—‘ Almost in every town in England where trade flourishes greatly,
they never ask whether a man has served his apprenticeship or where his settlement is, by which
means you see Leeds, Manchester, Halifax, Birmingham, &c., &c., rise on the ruins of these places.’ 7

How far women could avail themselves of the gild privileges is not clear ; widows certainly
had a right to exercise their husbands’ crafts, but whether this policy was dictated by a sense of fair
play or a desire to lessen the possibility that the widow and children should become ‘ chargeable to
the city,’ the chief bugbear of the local economist, it is impossible to say. The city court passed a
comprehensive by-law dealing with the subject in 1529 :—

Moreover it is fully agreed by the said presense yt if any fraunchest mens wyffs after the dethe of
theyr husbands be dispossyd to lyf soole withoute any other husband that then it shalbe lawfull unto all
suche to occupy theyr husbands crafts occupatons and misterys and for (sic) tayke bothe jormay men and
apprentices into theyre servyce, such tyme as other of the same crafts and occupatons usyth to tayke and
all suche apprentices to have lyke fredom as other mens apprentics of like occupatons hayth. Any act
ordynaunce or agrement hertofore made to the contrary in anything notwithstanding,”

But the gild of surgeons undoubtedly admitted both sexes; one of their ordinances especially
stipulates that

No man or woman within this cittye practisinge chirurgery or drawyng fourthe of tethe or any
other thinge belonging to the said arte unlesse they be under the governance of a Master and proved
able to occupy the sayd arte.’

But evidently the surgeons resented the incursion of women, for the council had to interfere to
protect Isabel Warwick,

forasmuch as it apereth that Isabell Warwike hath skill in the sc

yence of surgery and hath d
good therein. Ttis therefore agreed by these presens that she uppon her good Chinon: shall use a
same science within this cittie without lett of any of the surgeans of the same.’!

bid. xxxiii, fol. 236, 10 Dec. 1610. 1B. M. Add
? York Miunie, Rec. xi, fol. 67 d, 20 Oct. 1529. ; een deep CES

8 Ordi f Barb i i mons Ay
Ra rte inances of Barbers and Chirurgions, No. 8, 1592. The writer is indebted to Dr. Auden for this

™ York Munic. Rec. xxv, fol. 1524, June 1572.

453

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Again early in the 17th century the mayor and aldermen interfered on behalf of women.
Candle-making had been a domestic industry, but the tallow chandlers of York made themselves
into a company with the result that candles rose in price from 4d. to sd. a pound and that divers
poor citizens and widows were thrown out of employment. But the court refused to countenance
the change and twenty of the petitioners were licensed to make candles in spite of the efforts of the
newly constituted company.’®

The bakers’ ordinances of 1595 have a regulation that ‘no woman should be set on worke’
except the wife or daughter of a free baker.’®

Wardell has an allusion to various gilds, clothworkers, mercers, grocers, salters, drapers,
millwrights, carpenters, joiners, plasterers, coopers, bricklayers, cordwainers, tailors, ironmongers,
glaziers, cutlers, pewterers, which were incorporated at Leeds in 1663,” but there is no evidence t
show what connexion, if any, there is between the old gild organizations and these new and possibly
ephemeral institutions. There is, however, no doubt that the fact that Hull and York were the
centres of local branches of the two great national trading companies, the Merchant Adventurers **
and the Eastland Merchants,’® was a powerful stimulus to the development of industrial Yorkshire ;
still by the end of the 17th century gilds and companies had alike ceased to be factors of any
importance in the general economic condition of the county, though even to-day the Merchant
Adventurers and Merchant Tailors of York continue to hold meetings, have their halls, and attend
various Ceremonies in commemoration of pious benefactors.

Although the country never again suffered from such an awful visitation as the plague
of 1348-9, still it is difficult in this age of freedom from epidemic to realize what an important
factor both politically and economically these constant recurring pestilences were. “The municipal
records of York bear ample testimony to the terror which news of these outbreaks excited in the
civic authorities. In fact, one of the great events of English history, the foundation of the Tudor
dynasty, might not have taken place had not the absence of many of the members of the council
from York, on account of the plague, prevented any opposition to the march of Henry Tudor
through Yorkshire, for York had long been the stronghold of Yorkist partisans. But the times were
changed since Archbishop Zouch relied chiefly on prayer and fasting to stop the Black Death of
1349 ; precautions were taken to prevent its entrance into the city, and isolation was forced upon the
victims. The material disadvantages are forcibly pointed out by the lord mayor :—

“Unles a good order be p[ro]vyded forthwith for such howses as ar infectyd with the said plag
mych inconvyence and greyt derth of people ys like to ensue and also all strangers by occason of the
sayd plage forber and withdraw themselves and but lyttell resorte unto the said citie to the great
damage and impovf[eriss]hing of the moste parte of the Inhabitants of the said citie and forasmyche as
Thomas Myddleton of this citie Inholder beyng sore infect with the seyd plage obstinately and wilfully
hath brokyn suche order as was laitely takyn by the lord maier of this citie and his Breth(r)en to the
greyte infeccon of a multytude of the citizens of the seyd citie for whiche misdemeanours to the example
yt is agreed by the said p[re]sens yt there shalbe levyd of the goods and chattels of the seyd Thomas
Myddylton a

In May 1550 there was a serious outbreak of plague, but as the regulations were lax, for the city
council enacted ‘ that plague-stricken people only to go abowte in case of necessity and then to bere
a white wand,’ it was no wonder that the disease spread and that a hundred people were suffering
from it by the end of the month. Apparently these were mostly the very poor, for 8d. a week
was given to them out of the city fund.®

The scarcity of food was so great during this visitation that a by-law had to be passed
prohibiting any kind of grain being sent out of the city, and obliging butchers, who had fled
from the city, to return ‘and serve the inhabitants with vytells at a reasonable price,’ or to pay a fine
of £10." So disastrous were the results that several years later York, in petitioning Parliament for
remission of taxation, assigned as a reason ‘that there is a great number of howses vacante within the
same by reason of the grete pestilence that was laitly there.’ But this attack of plague was fairly
general, for Princess Mary had to leave Wanstead on account of it.®4

In 1563, when the plague was raging in London and throughout the country, five unfortunate
York drapers anda goldsmith visited Stourbridge Fair, bought extensively, and returned with their
wares to the city. It was reported that the plague was rife at Stourbridge. The men were ordered

” York Munic. Rec. xxxiii, fol. 77, 20 Oct. 1615. ** B. M. Add. MS. 34605, fol. 36.
7 J, Wardell, Municipal Leeds, 34.

** «The Merchant Adventurers of York,’ Handbook of the British Association (York 1906), 212-27.

® «The Acts and Ordinances of the Eastland Company’ Trans. Royal Hist. Soc. (3rd series), xi.

*! Tbid. xx, fol. 182, 28 May 1550. ® Tbid. fol. 224, 9 July 1550.
S Tbid. xxi, fol. 204, 19 Dec. 1552. “ C. Creighton, op. cit. 304.

454

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

to close their shop windows, and to avoid intercourse with their neighbours until further order. On
their refusal they were sent to prison in Monkbar, and their wives, servants, and household were
ordered ‘ to kepe theym quietly in theyr houses from accompaynyng with neghburghs.’ No goods
or wares from the South were admitted within the walls, Corpus Christi plays were forbidden,
strolling players were driven from the city, the keepers of the poor lodging-houses were forbidden to
take in beggars, vagrants, or vagabonds. Micklegate Bar and Skeldergate Postern were carefully
watched, and any stranger coming in was closely questioned as to the district from which he Pade
and debarred entrance if he came from Ferrybridge or Kippax where the pestilence was raging.®
But it was during the 17th century that Yorkshire suffered most from the plague. News reached
York in the July of 1603 that Newcastle ®* was not a safe place for traders to visit on account of the
pestilence, and two months later the disease had worked its way southwards, and had appeared in
several small villages in the Tadcaster and Wetherby district, only 10 miles from York itself. The
York Council met the danger with commendable promptitude. Stringent preventive measures
were adopted, the execution of which was placed in the hands of two officials, a cleanser and a viewer,
who had gained experience in the terrible times at Newcastle.” Amusements such as bride hed
and the feasts of the trading companies were forbidden, cats and dogs were either to be kept at home
or destroyed. Oswald Metcalf was appointed to kill all those which he found ‘in the strats’ and to
have ‘for his paynes iid. apece for every one which he shall so kill and the skynnes of such which
he shall so kill.’

Public begging was prohibited ; the poor were to be relieved in their own homes. Suspected
cases were to be at once removed to Hob Moor, about a mile outside Micklegate Bar, or
Bootham Stray, about the same distance from Bootham Bar, where some sort of tents or temporary
buildings had been erected. Jubbergate, Gillygate, Trinity Churchyard, Goodramgate, Water
Lane, Spurriergate, Coney Street, Bishophill, and Bootham Bar were centres of infection when the
mayor wrote his account to his civic brethren on 5 May 1604. The panic spread ; sheriffs,
chamberlains, and constables fled from the city. The officials offered large bribes to be allowed to
forsake their duties, but they were sternly ordered to remain at their posts.*? Sheriffs who disobeyed
were fined £100, chamberlains £40, and constables £20.° But the mayor realized that the
presence of death often acts not as a deterrent but as an incentive to crime. He writes—

that the infection doth so greatlie increase in this cittye that unlesse we the magistrates have great
care and do take paines in the governinge and rulinge of this cittye and in takinge order for the
receivinge of them, the poorer sort would not be ruled, which would be a great discredit unto us.”

By the February of 1605 York was declared free from infection. It has been calculated that
about 3,512 people died of plague in York. The registers of seventeen of the most populous
parishes return 2,000 deaths between 1 May and 31 December 1604, and the remaining parishes
account for about 1,500 more. When it is remembered that exceptional precautions were taken in
the case of York, so that probably the death rate was not so high there as in other places, and that
the whole of Yorkshire was visited, some idea may be formed of the immediate paralysing effect
of these terrible scourges on the economic and industrial life of the people and the ultimate effect
on the organization of labour.

But in the year 1631 there was an outbreak of plague of still greater magnitude, and precau-
tionary measures were no longer entrusted solely to the civic authorities ; Wentworth was President
of the Council of the North, and resided in York. With characteristic energy he threw himself
into the subject of sanitary reform. The church played an important part in the suppression of the
Black Death, the mayor and aldermen in dealing with the outbreaks of plague under the Tudors
and James I; but although the City Council might be the instruments appointed by Wentworth to
put his orders in execution, they were deprived of all initiative, obedience to a stern taskmaster was
substituted for the meritorious self-sacrifice, which lends to the history of the earlier outbreaks the
attraction which is inseparable from voluntary effort. In a letter to Viscount Dorchester, Went-
worth gives a succinct account of the manner in which the plague came from Lancashire into the
West Riding. Heptonstall was the first place attacked, no fewer than forty houses there being infected ;
but Halifax, only a few miles distant, escaped, and Leeds, although the disease was at Beeston and
Holbeck in the immediate neighbourhood, had not a single case when the letter was written. In
the neighbourhood of York itself the plague was brought ‘ by a lewde woman, who brake forth of

* York Munic. Rec. xxiii, fol. 106-45, 21 July 1563—14 June 1565.

% Ibid. xxxii, fol. 2794, 8 July 1603. " ae

% Tbid. fol. 323 d. 27 Apr. 1604.

8 Ibid. fol. 329 d. 12 May 1604.

® Thid. fol. 3324. ” Ibid. fol. 3404, 11 July 1604. *! Thid
® Ibid. fol. 3402. * Thid. fol. 3944, 3 Feb. ne _

455

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Armin’ and ‘ ungratiously left it behind her.’ It is possible that Wentworth overrated the faith
that the people had in his presence, for he concludes :—

The towne takes much comfortte in our stay heare, and would fall into affrights and confusion if
wee should leave them, soe as wee as yet hold on our ordinary sitting and we dispence of his Ma‘
accustomed justice to his people, and in good faith, I should for my partte be very loathe to leave them
in this distressed case, seeing they conceave they are much the better for my stay among them and
that in truth I think they are now much more orderly than they would be under the government
of the Mayor alone.”

It cannot be said that the measures adopted for keeping the people in order erred on the side
of leniency ; a man ‘for dancing and fidling without Walmgate barr, in this doleful and dangerous
tyme there shalbe openly whipped.’ ** Four women and a man who dug up infected clothes were
set in the stocks and whipped ; ° a blacksmith’s wife, who said, ‘If the sicknesse would come in
fast enough she would runn amongst the thickest of them,’ *’ was whipped openly. Seven men were
fined for drinking and revelling in these ‘heavisome times.’ ®* A spurrier, who replied to the con-
stable asking questions as to the health of his household, ‘all were in health but his catt was sick,’
expiated his jest by imprisonment and a fine of ros.”

The letter sent by Wentworth at the first outbreak of the plague is an admirable example of
the high standard of duty he exacted from others and imposed upon himself. His extraordinary
knowledge of the smallest details that concerned the welfare of the city under his charge is
characteristic of his boundless industry, and shows clearly the secret of the great influence he
exercised in his native county. The arrogance with which he treats the civic dignitaries is at
strange variance with his tender care for the little children, The result of his vigilance was that
there were few deaths within the city walls, though in the parish of St. Lawrence, where the
plague first began, eighty people died in three weeks.

Ultimo die Augusti 1631.

And now this day a letter from the Right honourable the Lord President to my Lord Maior and
Aldermen was redd as followeth : After my verie heartie comendacons I am sorie to heare that the
sicknesse hath sett foote within the walles of this cittie, and conceiving the danger to be verie greate,
if God of his goodnesse divert not this plague from us, and that it maic be the easilier prevented in the
beginning than hereafter, when it may be our ill happ to have it further spredd amongst us, I thought
it good to wryte this much unto you being myselfe this morning to go out of towne on the King’s
direction & about his Ma" businesse You have under his Ma the chardge & gouvernance of this
people w is to be required at your hands both before God and man more especially by myselfe and
this Counsell as p’sons trusted in theise and accountable as well as yourselves & therefor in dis-
charge of my owne, not dutie onelie to my M' but my affection also to this towne I do repeat that
you punctually observe theise orders followinge withall I must tell you plainelie I will informe myselfe
very dilegentlie how they are observed and executed, and shall proceed sevearly to punish your
negligence and others disobedience of them, and that shall Wilson the Chirargion in particular smart
for when it may be he little dreames of it. These are not things to be . . . w'all.

1. It is fitt that you charge everie maister of a familie that he soone as anie of his house fall sick
of what disease soever, that he instantlie acquaint you the Lord Maior keeping himselfe and house
private, and not admitting the visit of anie neighbour, till you have informed yourself of the circum-
stances, and give directions how he shalbe more restrained or lesse restrained of his libertie.

2. Secondlie that you shall strictly inquire out all persons that have beene amongst the infected
and without sparing of anie to cause them to be shutt upp and there to continue till farther orders.

3. Thirdlie that none be suffered to disperse their families into anie other parts of the cittie or
contry nor anie presume to take anie such p’sons removed into their houses without license of the
Lord Maior and then not to be by his Ld’? granted but with greate circumspection & reason.

4. Fourthly that all Faires, Feasts and publique meetings be prohibited in p’ticular one faire
usually kept at this time of the yeare Wamgate untill farther allowance of myselfe and this Counsell
when the state of the health of the Cittie shalbe better understood unto us then now it can be upon
the first breaking of this contagion forth amongst us in this article I doe not include meetings at
divine service nor yet the daylie markets kept for the p’vision of the Cittie.

5. Fifthly there would be some honest old people appoynted to be searchers who are to be
distinguished by rodds they care to have in their hands and to be well allowed for as they keepe
within doores, and not stirr abroade except at times of their search to be made.

6. Sixtlie that som tents be sett upp or houses in som outskirts of this cittie be forthwith thought
of and appoynted whither the meaner sort which may be suspected ought p’sentlie to be removed out

* §.P. Dom. Chas. I (22 Sept. 1631, cc, 14).

*° York Munic. Rec. xxxv, fol. 1262, 26 Sept. 1631.

% Ibid. fol. 1462, 12 Dec. 1631. 7 Tbid. fol. 1212, g Sept. 1631.
% Ibid. fol. 1274, 30 Sept. 1632. ® Tbid. fol. 1504, 11 Jan. 1631.

456

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

of the cittie there to remaine till they be cleansed either of the sicknesse or of the suspicon, in
perticuler I desire a butcher (in margin Henr. Wilkinson) here in Marigate whose name I will send
you who is knowne to have beene in companie with one on Sundaie last that is now shutt upp may.
be instantlie removed to som such place least he might prove dangerous to his neighbours hereabouts
the rather for that being admitted by Alderman Crost (whose remissenes therein I must blame) to
depart on his owne words that he would goe presentlie home to his house and not depart thence with-
out licence, was neverthelesse abroade all daie till tenn a clock at night and then came home drunke.

7. Seventhly if anie disorderlie p’sons shall not obey your dyrections hearin and in such other
dyrections as you in discrecon shall thinke fitt to be observed for the saftie of the Cittiec, that if
they be men of substance you doe acquaint me & the Counsell therewith, who you shall see will
make their doeings exemplarie, if they be poore & meane people you are to appoynt your officers to
see them to be soundly whipped severall days after other if there be cause to the terror of such
desperate people.

8. Eightlie that all the inhabitants be charged as much as may be to keepe in their servants and
especially their children who by reason of their tendernesse are apter to take the infection then those
wch are of more yeares.

g. Ninthly that you advise wth the Phisicions & learne from them the best rules their art
affords wherby to hinder the increase or danger of the infection and that the p’sons infected be told
of such remedies as are good against the malignitie of the disease.

10. Tenthlie that you everie daie make me and the Counsell, and in my absence such of the
counsell as remaine how you procede in the performance of theise orders how they are obeyed or
disobeyed & by whome, what p’sons or places die or are infected, to the intent such timelie order
may be given therein as is fitt.

11. Eleaventhlie that you make liberall sessem’ts for provision of those wch are infected, and
take care they be watched and tended, both for the saftie of the cittie & recoverie of themselves so
farre as may be, but when I name librall sessem’ts I do not meane such allowance be made (as I
understand the lewder sort of them would p’tend I meane) not to Luxurie or wantonnesse, but to the
necessitie of nature, in a competent manner & to sobrietie. The sessem’ts likewise of your other
poore in generall must be inlarged that so they may be kept at home, and severlie and justlie punished
if they stirr abroade, wherein I shalbe readie for my owne p’t in a time thus conditioned to give you
a good example in my owne p’ticular as I tould you my Lo. Maior the other daie. I will only add
thus mutch more to the third Article that if anie man disperce his familie or receive anie so flitting
w"out the privitie of my Lo. Maior that you cause both the house of the remover and receiver to be
p’sentlie shutt upp and all the people in them, and so kept till the time of danger be runn up, and in
particuler in the p’sent case of Mr. Alderman Lawne looke you spechly hold this course to begin with
who hath beene bould from the beginning of this infection in believing so little and whose care in
shutting up himselfe albeit I comend yet doe I mutch blame him for sending his children into other
parts of the towne, and them also who have of their owne heade received them.

Finally I well hope if theise and such other good orders as you in your owne cares & judgments
shall supply be sevearly putt in practice it will be the meanes next under God to restore health unto our
dwellings ; so as it behoves me to call upon you strictlie for an account hearin wch I shal! most
assuredly doe verie precicely, and it behoves you not to be negligent in so greate a dutie, wherein if
you faile you shall not only offend highly against God & the publique, but the blood of theise men
be required at your hands wch you shall suffer thorow your retchlesnesse to fall under this hevie
affliction.

I will end this long letter w'® desire that you will for my owne discharge send me at my retorne
a coppie, for I have not time to take one myselfe and finally to tell yo" the greatest pittie you can in
the world shew to your selves, the inhabitants of this cittie together with your owne wives &
children wilbe by using all seveare and strict courses in the preventinge the first beginnings and
apperances of this contagion amongst us,

And so I rest,
You" verie loveing freind

: Wentworrn.)”
Mano’ of Yorke

this last of
August 1631.

The greatest care was taken to acquaint the people with the most approved remedies. The city
records contain several of these prescriptions.

Theise precepts following are p’scribed by learned and approved phisicons.
Lett those poore people who are afraid to be infected by being imployed about the sick eate
butter and breade with sage sorrell or garlicke pilled in the morninge before their imployents,

Lett them putt into their drinke ginger stirred and steepe in it the topps of woormewood first
washt and burned.

Lett them chue in their mouthes settwall or angellice for want of it, or gentian.
_ , Lett them lye upon a stick (posie wise) a little peece of sparge well dipped in white wine
viniger camphorated wch they may have at the appothecaries.
® York Munic Rec. xxxv, fol. 1 194-119).

3 457 58

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Let the infected houses be p’fumed with the p’fumes of Tarr, pitch or Rosin or guinig wood and
also all their clothes. Also let them p’fume their houses with viniger or Rosemarie or Bayleaves.

If anie botches or plague sores arise let them use either of these following remedies to draw them
to a head and to ripen and burst them. ;

Take the rootes of white lillies rost them well in a good quantitie of sorrel lapped in a wett paper
then stamp and apply them hot to the swellinge and lett it lie too 24 hours or apply fresh if need be
But be sure to burne the plaister soe taken of in the Chimney Fire.

or this
Take a quantitie of Leaven a handfull of Mallowes of sorrell as much of scabious as mutch figgs
cow ingons pilled and slised. Lett all theise be boyled in old ayle untill they come to a soft pultis
stampe it and apply it hot to the place thick spredd and this renew everie twentie howers
burning it after it be taken of as is formerlie said.
They maie drinke (if they can get it) whigg or butter milke ; But not wey.”

In 1645 the West Riding suffered terribly ; Leeds between March and December lost 1,325
of its inhabitants by plague.? Wakefield suffered in a less degree ; from August 1645 to August
1646, 245 people died of the disease, but the great plague of 1665, the last plague in England,
apparently left Yorkshire untouched.°

It is asserted that there was aconsiderable settlement of Flemings in Yorkshire during the
reign of Henry VII,® but of this no evidence is forthcoming. The Lay Subsidies, which ought to
throw light on the subject, for in and after the reign of Henry VI aliens paid double the amount
paid by natives, are not extant for this reign. During the previous reign, however, several
lists of those who paid to the subsidies have been preserved ; but, according to these, Scotsmen, who
were of course regarded as aliens, were in great preponderance. Of the twelve aliens who figure in
the West Riding list only one, Thomas Francheman, comes from the Continent; the twenty
East Riding aliens are all Scots, while the North Riding aliens include John Ducheman, Herman
Ducheman, Benet Magnus, and seventeen Scotsmen.’

The Roll for the next two years simply bristles with Scotsmen, though Mounder Johnson
Iselman, David Atteson Dutchman, Thomas Nanson, nation not given, and Paul Scolemaster in
Orkeney, relieve the monotony of the tale.®

But the West Riding undoubtedly returns the fewest aliens in both cases, and the disparity is
even greater in the next roll, for the East Riding returns thirty-three aliens, mostly Scots, John
Austyn Purceman, Briget Skirner Icelandwoman, being the most interesting exceptions ; the North
Riding returns twenty-six and the West Riding only seven.? ‘The continental wars of Henry VIII
would naturally stop any stream of immigration to England, but a curious light is thrown on the
intense animosity with which the Scots alien was regarded in the city of York by a case of which an
account is preserved in the city records.

On the zoth day of November the fifth yere of the regne of the sovercign lord Kyng Henry VIII
William Robynson wever which was diffamed and slandered to be a Scott borne came personally
before the right reverend father in God Edmond th’ Abbot of the Monastery of (our) Lady
withowte the walls of the citie of York and then and there brought witnesses to swear he was
trewe Englyshman.

In another case, that of Nicholas Maland, the testimony of the Mayor and Aldermen of
Newcastle was evoked and the following letter was received by the Mayor of York:

Be it knowen to ye that whereas we ar credably informed that Nicholas Maland nowe of the
citie of York merchant is diffamed noysed and slandered that he shuld be a Scottysman borne
not only to the rebooke of his good name but also to the gret hurt and hyndrance of his
goods worldly’. . . honeste and credible persons came affore us and hath sworne upon the holy
evangeliste by them bodely touched that the said Nicholas Maland was born of his mothers womb
in Crawcoke in the said Bysschopryche and christened in the parish church of Ryton aforesaid."

According to the lay subsidy of 1545 all the aliens, of whom seven are distinctly Scots, three
French, and one of doubtful nationality, pay a double tax.? But in the following reign this rule
was not observed. Francis Gaven, Edmund Jordan, Martin Sofay paid double, but Robert Jordan,

' York Munic. Rec. xxxv, fol. 1202. * Thid. fol. 1204. ’ Whitaker, Hist. of Leeds, 75.
“Yorks. Arch. Journ. xv, 437, 453. °C. Creighton, op. cit. 688.

° J. James, Hist. of the Woollen Trade, 586, 613 ; Mrs. J. R. Green, Town Life in the 15th Century, ii, 94.
* «Alien Merchants in England,’ Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. (new ser.), ix, 94.

”P.R.O. Lay Subsidy Roll, bdle. 217, no. 55, Doncaster (Oct. 12, 28 Hen. VI).

* Ibid. bdle. 217, no. 59 (28-30 Hen. VI).

* Ibid. bdle. 217, no, 67 (31-34 Hen. VI).

? P.R.O. Lay Subsidy Roll, bdle. 217, no. 109 (City and Ainsty, 37 Hen. VIII).

458

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

John Watson, Francis Darragon, and Stephen Darragon paid the ordinary rate. Nor can the
solution lie in the fact that some of these were already denizens, for the only one to be traced on
the Patent Roll is Edmund Jordan, and he paid double.’

It is somewhat interesting to note that comb-making, which still lingers in York, and until
the last few years was a flourishing industry there, was carried on by Robert Jordan, brother of
this Edmund Jordan, who was made free of the city in 1552, eighteen years after his brother had
been enrolled."

In 1558 it was thought advisable by the central government to collect statistics of all the
Frenchmen in the kingdom. Four Frenchmen only were returned in the city, Stephen and
Bartholomewe Darrange,'® smiths, and Robert and Edmund Jordan,"*, the former a comb-maker, the
latter a surgeon. The alderman and a special jury of twelve men had made diligent search and
certified that they were of honest behaviour, of good name, and behaving themselves

as obedient and faithful liegemen to the King and Quenes Majestie and other the Quenes noble
progenitours according to the lawes and statutes of the Realme and so have continuyed ever
sithens the date of the severall letters patente and as touching landes tenementes rents fees or
annuities they have none—except only yt the saide Edmunde Jordan hath one mansion house
within the said citie.””

The alien list in the lay subsidy forms a political barometer of the period ; in 1572 the Scots
had almost disappeared from York, and immigrants from the Low Countries had taken their place.
It was obviously useless to double the tax on their possessions, for they had nothing. Leonard
Howbert # paid 2s., Edmund Jordan 1os., and John Harper 6s., at the rate of 2s. in the pound as
aliens settled in the city for several years. But against the newcomers since the last collection there
is a pathetic reiteration of midi]; it is no longer the skilled artisan attracted by visions of a wider
sphere for his skill, but the refugee flying from persecution, that figures on the roll. The list
seems to merit quotation, for these men were probably the first religious refugees to seek an
asylum in that county which is now the great stronghold of English Nonconformity.

The register consists of Antony Riscorde,!® Augustine Dockam,” Robert Frankrewe,”
Francis Dowell, Christopher Leyrkes, Esdras and Peter Bravenig,” James Moltrees,”* John
Devowe,™ Andrew James, John Legge, Patrick Maesterman, Isaac Mayer, John Hannaye, none
of whom had any possessions. Each, however, paid a poll tax of 4d.”

The fact that in the great Yorkshire wool trial of 1613, when witnesses of advanced age
were brought from different parts of the West Riding, not one of them referred to any aliens,
although it is quite clear from the depositions that the trade had been long established there, seems
to be fairly good presumptive evidence that any Elizabeth settlement of Flemish weavers was small
in number and limited in influence.*®

According to tradition a number of refugees from the Netherlands who came to the Humber
were disembarked near Hull, and by the influence of the Earl of Shrewsbury were sent to
various parts of the county.

Those who followed the weaving industry first attempted to settle in York, but the civic
authorities, in pursuance of their usual exclusive policy, refused them admittance. The story is
interesting and plausible, but so far nothing more authentic than this anonymous newspaper letter,
which unfortunately contains other statements easily refuted, has come to light.” Nor is there any
evidence in the York Municipal Records of an attempted alien invasion, though the minutes of the
Lord Mayor’s Court are singularly full and precise for the reign of Elizabeth.* But the letter of
‘ Traditional of the children of the Refugees’ is so circumstantial and has, in spite of its many

SW. Page, Letters of Denization, 1509-1603 (Huguenot Soc. Publications viii), 138.

™ York Freemen (Surt. Soc.), i, 273, 254.

® Thid. 257 (1537). ‘Stephanus Darragon, Gallicus, loksmyth.’

Ibid. 254 (1534). ‘Edmundus Jordain, surgon.’? He also figures in the Patent Roll: ‘Jorden,
Edmund, of York, surgion,’ from ‘ Orlyaunce.? W. Page, op. cit. 138.

York Munic. Rec. xxii, fol. 137, 20 Sept. 1558. 8 York Freemen (Surt. Soc.), li, 11, 3.

® Tbid. 12. ‘Anth. Rayskaert, Docheman, arres werker.’ (1570).

* Ibid. 6. ‘Augustine Doekham, tayllyor,’ 1564. 7 Ibid. 1. ‘ Roberte Frankrewe, potycary,’ 1558.

“Ibid. 12. ‘Esdras Browyns Ducheman arres worker’ (1570), 45. ‘Susan Brooence, spynster, fil
Esdras Browens, ares worker’ (1599).

3 Ibid. ‘Jacobus Mattys Ducheman,’ 1572, 14.

** A John Lavaux, servant to the Dean of York, is entered on the Westm. Deniz. Roll, 36 Hen. VIII.
W. Page, op. cit. 147.

* P.R.O, Lay Subsidy Roll, bdle. 218, no. 133, 14 Eliz.

” Letter in the Sheffield Mercury, dated 24 Sept. 1818, and signed ‘Traditional of the Children of the
Refugees,’ published 4 Oct. 1818.

459

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

blunders, such a general air of verisimilitude, that it is impossible to dismiss its statements without
investigation. In fact the assertion that the aliens failed to get a footing in York is borne out by
contemporary evidence. The question, however, of exclusion from a jealously guarded city with all
the machinery of civic control in the hands of a close oligarchy is a very different matter from
closing up the whole of the sparsely populated districts of the West Riding. That the 16th-century
aliens should have persistently avoided the district where there were special facilities for their trade,
and whither it is natural they should have resorted, when the pressure brought to bear on them in
corporate towns became unbearable or when newly arriving in the country, 1s so contrary to
expectation that some explanation is necessary. It must be remembered too that if they arrived in
the Humber, the West Riding would be the nearest refuge where their occupation was carried on
to any great extent, for even in the reign of Elizabeth the East Riding had concentrated on
agriculture. ae

The difficulty of carrying out a systematic policy of exclusion, such as was rigidly enforced
by the local authorities in some towns, in the wide and scattered area of the West Riding clothing
district, is sufficiently obvious. The lay subsidy already quoted proves the impossibility of complete
exclusion even from York, the most exclusive of all cities. "The argument that any accretion of
individuals filtering through from the eastern counties or having been refused admittance at York
would have introduced the manufacture of ‘new draperies,’ and that as the West Ridiag remained
faithful to ‘ kerseys’ no aliens settled, is plausible but not entirely convincing. For if they came as
refugees rather than pioneers they would be more likely to satisfy an existing demand than start a
new industry. There was a steady call for coarse Yorkshire cloth, especially after the organization
of the cloth export trade by the Merchant Adventurers and Eastland Merchants, both active agencies
in Yorkshire, offered such facilities for transportation to the Baltic Provinces, where the Pomeranian
and Polish nobles clothed their retainers in this coarse but durable material.”

The difficulty of procuring the best kind of wool is also a factor in the argument ; the records
of the Yorkshire woollen trade are full of complaints of the way in which the south country
clothiers bought up all the best Cotswold, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk wools. At any time it would
be cheaper for the Yorkshire weaver to work up the wool produced in his district, and no amount
of skill brought to bear on inferior wool would make it into fine cloth. The argument that the
lack of improvement in the cloth proves the absence of the skilled alien weaver is not conclusive.
That the civic authorities of York would strenuously oppose any settlement of aliens, who might
become a burden on the town, would be in keeping with what is known of that august body ; but
that the merchants of York, whose gain depended on buying the work of the weavers in the out-
lying western district cheap and selling it dear, would connive at or even assist alien weavers to
settle in the vicinity is quite compatible with their character, especially when it is remembered that
they would by this means curry favour with the central government, whose favour they were anxious
to gain in order to procure convoys for their goods. In their character as civic authorities they would
naturally be anxious to drive the alien from the city, but in their character as money-makers it is
difficult to believe that the extremely level-headed merchants, who formed the bulk of the council,
would not see in the arrival of the foreigners an opportunity for getting a plentiful supply of cheap
cloth. In fact, in 1568, when the labour element in the common council had forced the hand of
the lord mayor and aldermen to pass a measure forbidding any manner of foreigner of any mystery
craft or occupation to settle in York unless he paid £3 6s. 8d. at the least, the capitalist element
had added a saving clause,

Except onely some such handycraftsman as shalbe thought by the said lord mayor and his counsell
necessaree and profitable for the comon weal and amendment of the sayd citie to be somewhat
mitigated of the said franches money.”

The presence of the foreign worker in various branches of the iron trade during the 14th
century is satisfactorily proved. The register of freemen bears ample testimony to the fact that
aliens came freely to York and took part in the cutlery trade. The first furbur, i.e. cutler or
furbisher of armour, entered on the roll bears the name of ‘ Willelmus Fraunceis,’ whether alien or
English born it is, of course, impossible to say.24_ But it has never been suggested that the impetus
which originated the iron trade in York came from without. Goldsmiths, money-makers, workers
in brass and copper, cutlers, smiths, marshalls, ironmongers, makers of needles, locksmiths, wire-
drawers, all figure in the roll in the reigns of Edward I and II. Still, it is suggestive that at the
time when it is clear from many different sources that Edward III was trying to improve English
manufactures there should have been in the metallic as in the woollen trade an influx of alien
artisans. ‘ Arnaldus de Almaygne, furbur,’ came in 1327 **; he was followed four years later by Ingil-
bright de Alman *; and in 1340 ‘Christianus de Devensrode, furbour de Alman,’ came to the city.

” BLM. Reasons offered by the Merchant Adventurers and Eastland Merchants, 816, m (100).
“York Munic. Rec. xxxiv, fol. 104, 13 Feb. 1568. | York Freemen (Surte Soc.), i, 3.
* Ibid. 1-23. 8 Ibid. 24. * Tbid. 26. * Ibid. 35.

460

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

‘There are no entries among the freemen of any alien ironworkers from 1340 to 1350, but
the disorganization of the economic life of the country sufficiently accounts for this silence. In 1350
“Goddeskalk Scudik, de Almann, furbur’ **; in 1352 ‘ Matheus de Colonia’; in 1355 ‘Tydkynus
van the rode’ ®8; and in 1359 ‘ Johannes de Bruges,’ ** all furburs, settled in the northern capital. These
men would not have been admitted unless York had reaped some advantage, and the inference seems
fair that the influx of foreigners was a conscious effort on the part of the central government to
raise the standard of a trade which had, however, been generally followed in York from the earliest
ages. Some of the very excellent ironwork of an early date that is found in the churches in York
and its neighbourhood seems to point to some settlement of handicraftsmen of more than average
ability ; it is possible that the activity of the ecclesiastical builders in York may have attracted to the
city a foreign element, for the Church was always cosmopolitan in its tendencies.

In the more artistic branches of the metallic arts York owed much to foreigners. Three
coiners were admitted as freemen between 1359 and 1362, coming from Italy : Andreas de Florence,”
Bonathe de Florence, and Laurentius de Florence” ; while the mechanical side is represented by a
certain ‘Nicholas le Yhonge, de Flandre,’ who was a bellows-maker in York in 1372.8 It is
certainly significant that in one of the few cases where the existence of a freemen’s list makes it
possible to verify the contention that alien skill had to be imported to raise the standard of industrial
efficiency, the verification should be so ample and unimpeachable.

The case is, however, entirely different when the question of alien influence in the Sheffield
cutlery trade and the 16th century is reached. Still, the superiority of Sheffield cutlery has so often
been traced to the influence of alien immigrants that the assertion has gained an air of authenticity
by mere force of reiteration, though the evidence is entirely circumstantial.

The latest historian of Sheffield industry approaches the subject with caution.

It has usually been accepted that the localization of the scythe and sickle trades on the Derby-
shire side of Sheffield, so marked a characteristic of the villages there, originated in the settlement of
refugees driven out of France and the Netherlands by persecution. “

The earlier historians are not so guarded in their expression of opinion.” It is certainly
curious that these statements with regard to the alien origin of several of the branches of iron
industry, which are associated with the Sheffield neighbourhood, all seem to have originated in the
letter already alluded to*® and a somewhat more elaborated account published a little later in a
periodical of no historic merit called the Northern Star. As however there are good grounds for
believing that Arthur Jewitt, father of the late Llewellyn Jewitt, was the writer of both letter and
article, and was himself a descendant of a refugee driven from France by the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, even though untrustworthy, they are useful in summing up the traditions in vogue
early in the 19th century amongst the immediate descendants of the refugees. A definite assertion
is made in them that ‘in the reign of Elizabeth thousands of refugees from the Netherlands found
their way into England’; iron and steel workers, arriving in the Humber, were, by the influence
of the Earl of Shrewsbury, assigned to Sheffield and the neighbourhood. It is added that under this
arrangement shear or sickle makers congregated in Eckington, scythe-smiths in Norton, scissor-smiths
in Attercliffe.”

It is apparently due to the AZercury letter and the Northern Star article that the smiths’ craft
in Norton is always said to have originated with an alien settlement. Fortunately here firm ground
is reached, for a document has come to light which effectually disposes of the alien origin of the
Norton scythe trade, though it leaves untouched the question of the improvement of the industry
by foreigners.*®

3° York Freemen (Surt. Soc.), i, 44. * Thid. 47. % Thid. 50. % Ibid. 54.
“Ibid. 56, 1359-62. "Ibid. 57. “ Thid. 54. “Thid. 70.

“R. E. Leader, Hist. of the Sheffield Cutlers’ Company, i, 14.

8S. Smiles, The Huguenots, i, 14. * Life of Llewellyn Jewitt, 47, 48. *’ Sheffield Mercury, loc. cit.

“This Indenture made 1oth of February, 1574, between John Urton alias Steven of Lightwood
yeoman, on the one part, and John Clayton of Lightwood aforesaid, labourer, on the other part, Witnesseth
that John Clayton of his free will, hath bound himself servant with John Urton, and after the manner of a servant
with him to dwell from Michaelmas next for the full term of four years, from this date ; faithfully to preserve his
secrets, keep his lawful commandments and not absent himself from his master’s house by night or day without
the special leave of his master. And John Urton doth covenant that he will cause him to be taught learned
and made perfect in the arte, craft and occupation of the scythsmiths craft if he, John Clayton, take the same
in, and in due manner to chastise him, finding him sufficient meat and drink, and also paying him 40 shillings
yearly during the term. And it is also agreed that as John Urton hath certain meanor (common) rights at
Lightwood, John Clayton shall have the same meanor in consideration that John Urton shall, at his own cost,
find and keep John Clayton six sheep during the same term of four years. And also further, that after the
expiration of the four years, and John Clayton then being a workman and able to keep whole work—that is
say, to work and make three dozen of scythes in a whole week, that then he shall work with John Urton, he
finding him meat and drink, and also paying £5 a year for wages, as long as they can agree after.

461

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The indenture, apart from the particular application, throws considerable light on the organiz-
ation of a branch of the cutlery industry as a domestic industry interdependent with the cultivation
of land.”

The general tenor of the indenture certainly proves that the scythe-smiths’ industry was no
new thing in 1574, and that the people concerned were natives of the district. Unfortunately the
scythe-smiths did not join the Cutlers’ Company until 1681, but they were even then all in the
neighbourhood of Norton and, with one exception, bore names common to the locality from the
14th century, There were three Brownells, four Wainwrights, four Hollands and two Ropers ;
still the fact must not be overlooked that five of the members of the newly incorporated branch of
the company bore the name of Gillot, Gillatt or Gilliott, and a Robert Gillott, a scythe-grinder,
died at Norton Lees in 1630. Smiles traces these Sheffield Guillots to Huguenot refugees,®! but
gives no authority for his statement. There were Gilliots in Yorkshire centuries before the
Elizabethan aliens came toEngland. The name occurs several times in the Poll-tax Returns of 1378.
William Guilyote, fuller, was enrolled as a freeman at York in 1368," and before the next 100
years had elapsed thirteen Gilliots had received the freedom of the city. Possibly some York
cutlers descended from the Gilliots, driven from their own city by the strict gild regulations, settled
in the Sheffield district in mediaeval times.

The first fellowship of cutlers, 1590, includes one name of French origin, Aleigne Bynny.™
Among the Derbyshire cutlers,; who joined the company in 1614, was Lawrence Cosin, also
apparently French.

The most complete list of 17th-century cutlers in Sheffield is given in the hearth-tax returns of
1669 ; °° several of these early cutlers as Parramour, Braman, Abdye, Revill, Gillot, Machon, Moake,
Burgon bear names that figure in the list of Huguenot settlers compiled by the Huguenot Society.
But owing to the reckless way in which names were anglicised at this period, great stress cannot be
laid on the absence of any unusual number of foreign names, even the names in the lists of known
aliens who settled in Norwich sound extremely English and familiar. In fact the same difficulty
that Dr. Beddoe finds in identifying any physical characteristics in Yorkshire that tend to prove
Flemish origin, on account of the similarity of the English and Flemish type, besets linguistic
investigation. The constant tendency of human nature to move on the line of least resistance and
substitute a known for an unknown sound, must have acted as a plane to remove those very
linguistic irregularities which would have facilitated the historian’s work.

There is strong inherent probability that some migration of foreign labour from London to less
well-known districts took place. Burghley took a keen interest in the development of new
industries and the improvement of those already started ; in the pursuance of this object, as is well
known, he did not scruple to bring over aliens.°* The London Cutlers’ Company, as early as 1592,
were agitating against foreign refugees who, they declared, were by their competition driving the
members of the company into the ranks of casual labour. They bitterly resented the intervention
of the ‘ friends of strangers’ who rendered all their efforts to cope with the evil futile. According
to the MS. Records of the London Cutlers’ Company, Lord Burghley had interfered on behalf of
foreigners and asked what was alleged against ‘ pore Frenchmen ?’ *”

An additional link in the chain of probabilities is supplied by the fact that the manorial lord
of Shefheld, the Earl of Shrewsbury, was in constant touch with the government, and there is
documentary evidence connecting Burghley, Shrewsbury and Sheffield. In a letter to the Lord
Treasurer the earl writes :

“I have sent yow a small rugge by this bearer, to wrappe aboute yo" legges at tymes convenient ;
wch yo" L. must accept as I present yt, and as thoughe o' cuntrey wools were much fyner, and o°
workmen more curyous, and, w' all, your L. shall receave a case of Hallomshire whittells, beinge such
fruictes as my pore cuntrey affordeth w™ fame throughout this realm.’ ®

But a curious passage in Strype seems to throw additional light on the subject.

And such indeed was the sad condition of the people of the Low Countries at this Time, that
great numbers of them had fled over hither and desired to join with the Dutch Church in London, ©
and to become members thereof. Yet so tender was the Queen of breaking with that proud and
powerful Prince, the King of Spain, that she would not admit of this, nor give countenance to such as

“R. E, Leader, ‘The Alien Refugee Tradition,’ Sheffield Telegraph, 15 December 1906. The writer is
indebted to Mr. Leader for much help and suggestion in this section.

*°R. E. Leader, op. cit. i, 38. 51S. Smiles, The Huguenots, i, 400.

° York Freemen (Surt. Soc.), i, 67.

* Thid, 86, ror, 104, 112, 113, 144, 153, 162, 170, 176, 183, 194.

“4 R. E. Leader, op. cit. 1, 10. * P.R.O. Lay Subsidy Roll, W. Riding Yorks. 22 Chas. II.

“W. Cunningham, 4/ien Immigrants, 79. 7R, E. Leader, op. cit. i, 157.

*E. Lodge, [Wustrations of British Hist. ii, 414.

462

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

fled away out of these countries under his subjection. For it is remarkable what is set down and
recorded in a journal of the Dutch Church in London, written by Simon Ruytinck, one of the
ministers in those Times and yet preserved in their Church ‘That when divers Foreigners had come
hither on account of Religion, and desired to be admitted in communion with the rest of the Dutch
Church, the Queen hearing of it, commanded the Lord Mayor to disperse them from London. Where-
upon they applyed to the Bishop of London, to represent their case to the Queen and Council. Who
did so. And the Council sent a letter in answer to the said Church June 29 1574, in Favour, That
that Church should advise those new Members to depart from London [where they were more obvious
to be taken notice of by King Philip’s spies] and to go to other parts of the kingdom, [where there
were also Churches of Protestant Professors] Which that Church did accordingly.”

It certainly is a curious coincidence, that information from an absolutely sure source should be
forthcoming that royal pressure was being brought to bear on aliens in London to induce them to
leave the capital and settle in more remote regions, where they would escape the eye of Spain’s
emissaries. This supports a very circumstantial, though unauthenticated, statement made more than
two centuries later of the settlement of a number of aliens in Yorkshire. The Yorkshire West
Riding was an ideal spot for the purposes of concealment, as the physical configuration of the district
and the fact that it lay away from the great route to the North rendered it difficult of access and little
known, and the absence of any large towns with a developed gild life (for the Sheffield Cutlers’
Company, though in existence, was not strictly organized until 1624), rendered any policy of resist-
ance from civic authorities unlikely.

The State Papers, the Privy Council Registers, the Talbot Papers, and the Belvoir Papers
furnish no documentary evidence to support the tradition of alien settlements in the West Riding
connected with the iron industry. This can be explained on the supposition that Elizabeth and
Burghley were both anxious to suppress all evidence and to bury the aliens in obscure districts in
order to avoid attracting Spanish attention. The lack of letters of denization proves nothing, for,
as has been pointed out, the power of granting them was not always retained by the Crown but
delegated to officials ® and many that were issued might escape registration. It is a noteworthy
fact that of a list of more than forty aliens whose presence in Yorkshire is attested by the unim-
peachable authority of the Lay Subsidies,* only one name appears in letters of denization and acts
of naturalization.” The northern aliens were doubtless registered separately. “The Council of the
North would be the authority to whom the right of issuing such letters and keeping the register
would he entrusted. The loss of these records seems to account satisfactorily for the dearth of
information on the subject.

The obsolete idea that the Sheffield trade was started by aliens in the 16th century can be
dismissed as absolutely untenable. But the evidence brought forward leaves untouched the proposi-
tion that foreign influence played a part in developing the trade and raising its standard of
workmanship, while in support of this assertion there is much circumstantial evidence and a mass
of tradition and probabilities which no historian would be justified in neglecting.

The economic life of Yorkshire was seriously affected by the destruction of monasteries ; in
no county of England had the Church a more tenacious hold on the life of the people. This is
clearly shown by the support afforded by all classes of society to the risings in the Tudor times.
The monks had no temptation to be hard task-masters or rack-renters, and even the most virulent
of their opponents have seldom attacked them in their capacity of eleemosynary agents. Even had
Henry VIII not desired the ecclesiastical wealth, economic revolution would have forced a change,
for their productive methods could not have survived the incursion of the new landlord class. ‘The
change was quickened, but not initiated, by. the destruction of monasteries.

Yorkshire suffered in a twofold degree; the agricultural classes were the hardest hit, but the
appropriation of the funds of the religious gilds aimed a shrewd blow at the industrial classes, for it
was no easy task to disentangle the religious from the craft gild; when the right of appropriation
turned on the interpretation of a single word, misappropriation was inevitable. Yorkshire, promi-
nent alike for the wealth of its monasteries and the multiplicity of its gilds, suffered enormously.
Distress and poverty were excessive and universal. Speaking broadly, up to 1536 the poor depended
for their maintenance on the monasteries, from 1536 to 1569 the municipalities were answerable
for poor relief ; then, although the administration was left in their hands, the main lines of action

® Strype, Annals of Reformation, vol. ii, bk. 1, pp. 386-7 ; W. Cunningham, Alien Immigrants, 157.

6° W. Page, op. cit. p. ii.

* Subs. R. 15 Hen. VIII [printed in the Yorks. Arch. Fourn. iv, 170-77]; P.R.O. Lay Subs. R
bdles. 217, no. 109, 121 5 218, no. 133.

°° W. Page, op. cit. Professor Lloyd, McGill University, Montreal, late of Sheffield University, informs
the writer that all the stones he saw in his investigations into the Belgian Industry revolved in the same
direction as the Sheffield stones, that is in the contrary direction from those employed in other continental
countries.

463

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

were laid down either by the Privy Council or Parliament; not that either of these august
assemblages initiated any new or startling policy. But the most interesting and fullest account of the
treatment of the poor in any provincial town is contained in the twenty-one volumes of the York
Municipal Records. They cover the period from 1542 to 1688, and so extraordinarily minute and
circumstantial is the information given that a complete pauper directory of the 16th and 17th
centuries could be compiled from this source.

In the reign of Henry VIII two statutes were passed dealing with the vagrant poor,
but laws of this nature depend for their efficacy rather on the administrator than the legislator.
It is not, however, until 38 Henry VIII that the civic authorities seem to have taken the matter
seriously in hand. As one of the earliest examples of how York managed its poor, the extract,
though long, seems sufficiently interesting to merit quotation :—

It is agreed by the said p(re)sence that all constables of this citie and suburbs of the same shall
c(er)tifie the said wardens by wrytyng at the next warde mote courtes of all common beggars that is
come within the said parishes and wardes within the space of thre yeres last past. All power fowkes that
are lymytted to begge and hath baggs shall from now furth begge within the wardes which they inhabitt
and dwell within the said citie and in none other warde upon payne to be avoyded this city if any of
them do the contrary.“

None of the said power folke from hens furth shall tak nor receyve any strange chyldren into thei:
howses to the intent that any of them shall go aboute within this citie to begge as they have done
laitlei to the noysaunce uppon payne to any of them that doth the contrary shall be avoyded this
said citie always provided that it shalbe lawfull to them for to take and releive any power chyldren
that was borne within this citie or suburbs.

Every constable within this citie from now furth shall take all strange beggars vagabonds that
at any tyme herafter shall resorte and come within their constabulary to begg or that use or comytt
any misdemeanor and to put them in the stokkes and to give them none other dyat but onely brede
and watter according to the King’s statute that is to say by the space of thre days and thre nyghts and
to make the said wardens privey at the resortyng of any such vagabonds.®

The central government took special care to protect the poor people from the speculators in
grain ; ‘corners in wheat’ and the Chicago Pit are modern only in their magnitude. Men were
equally anxious to heap up riches in Tudor times, but the Tudor monarchs reserved to themselves
the right to plunder the poor ; their rivals in that field received short shrift. The Privy Council
in 1§49 sent an urgent message to the mayor ordering him ‘to punesshe suche uncharitable &
covetous persons as by there regulatons and gathering of corne into their hands care not so they may
have unreasonable gaynes though there neighbours perishe and dye by them for lak of convenyent
sustenaunce.’ ® This matter had been brought before the lord mayor a short time previous in the
form of a petition for ‘the reformaton of dyverse wronges whiche ar used agaynst the Comon welth
of the said citie.’®’ Amongst the complaints, the reckless destruction of wood for the
kilns, the taking down of houses, the inclosing of common fields, the lack of pasturage
for the cattle of the poorer inhabitants, is dwelt on, and the lord mayor is intreated to
put in force the laws which a paternal government had enacted for their protection. In dealing
with regrators and such like offenders, the Aldermen’s Court only acted as a prosecutor, who
brought the case before the justices of the peace. These in their turn committed the defendants
to prison, and reported on the case to the Lord President and Council of the North.

An Act was passed in 1551-2 which laid down definite rules as to the mode in which mean:
for the maintenance of the pauper element should be collected. Fortunately the amount con-
tributed in the different districts was entered in the city records. The document is valuable as
giving authentic evidence of the relative wealth of the various parishes, apart from its immediate
interest in connexion with the poor rate.

GUTHRUM WARD
St. Michel le Belfrey

every wek < . xs. vid.
St. Elene in Stayngate tas
every wek \ e $ . F 35. lid,
St. Martyn in Counystret : : . ; a : : vs.
St. Olavs } : - ‘i : ‘ xxd.

Total £1 os. 64.

® These volumes, which are full of the most interesting matter concerning the industrial and social life
of the people of York, have unfortunately never been printed, with the exception of a valuable volume of
extracts covering the 15th century compiled by Davies.

* York Munic. Rec. xviii, fol. 384,13 May 1546.

® Ibid. fol. 384. * Ibid. xix, fol. 934, 11 Dec. 1549.

% Ibid. fol. 87a, 18 Sept. 1549. ® Ibid. fol. 94a, 11 Dec. 1549.

464

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

GUTHRUM WARD—cont.

Monkward to pay every week accordingly.

St. Sampsons . : ‘ ’ : F ; A - 3h 4d.
St. Crux F : : 3 . ‘ . . 7 . - OS
Trinitie in Guthrumgate ae

John le Pyk

St. Margaret. i : F . . . ‘| ; . : 12d.
St. Cathryne ?. : ; : ‘ ; : . : i . 20d.
[Omnium Sanctorum] .. . in peseholme . 5; ‘ ‘ : : 4d.
St. Cuthbert . : : : : : ; . : : . 12d.
St. Elene ad Muros . . , ‘ ; : . . 12d.

Total 175. 4d.

MIKELLYTH WARD

St. Johns ad finem pontis ; ‘ ; . . : ‘ . 2s. 6d.
Martins in Mik ; : z : 5 : ; é : 20d.
St. Nich. voc Trinitie . : - ‘ : : ‘ s ; 20d.
Shes. 4h in North Stret : j ‘ : F : ‘ ‘ 25. Od.
St. Marie vet F : J ss : 5 : ‘ A ‘ 20d.
St. Marie de novo . F ¥ ; ° z : ‘ 12d.

Total. Ios. 4d.

WALMGATE WARD

St. Michil ad tnem pontis F , F ‘ , é . ‘ 65. od.
St. Marie. é ‘ ‘ : ; : ‘ : Z ‘ 164.
See ee ‘ : : ‘ ‘ : i : ; . . 35. 4d.
Crux Ss

St. Denis : ; : i P . : ; : : 45

St. Margaret . ‘ : z : A . ‘ . : . 25.

St. Lawrence . , . F ‘ F . : . 125.8

Total Li 2s. 8d.

The money was to be paid every Sunday to the wardens of the ward ; in case of non-payment
a distress was to be taken, and if the wardens were negligent they were to be imprisoned until
double the money was paid.” Stringent measures were enacted by the City Council to prevent
anyone slipping through the meshes of the poor rate net. ‘It is agreed that all thoes that ar gone
or hereafter shall go furth of this citie shal pay all maner of dewties as well to the Relief of powre
people as otherways orels they to be dysfranshesyd.’”

St. Thomas’s Hospital, where many of the poor of York were housed at the beginning of the
reign of Mary, had fallen into the greatest distress, so the lord mayor, in drawing up instructions
for the members who were to attend the new Parliament, requested them ‘to be suters to the
Quenes Grace to give to the said hospitall all those lait chaunter lands in Yorke for releif of the
sayd power which doe for the moste part lie wastyd rewynous and out of reparaton to the grete
defacyng of the city of York.’”* Fresh regulations had to be made, for poverty increased and
paupers abounded. The council, in order to encourage the four head beggars to be more
‘paynful and dyligentlie and ready to informe the sayd constables of all newe vagabonds,’ agreed to
give them, as well as the liveries which they had been accustomed to have, an annual fee of five
shillings a year each. ;

The heavy national taxation was eating into the very heart of York; the mayor, in a piteous
letter to the burgesses, describes the straits to which people had been driven to pay even the small
part that had been raised and sent to London.

Yea it would pitied a man’s hart to see what hard shifta powre man and woman made for some
wer fayne to sell theyr pott or theyr panne and other iniplements some laid their apparrell to pledge
to pay with their tax and of certayne vacant howses in the decaied paroches the collectours had
nothynge to distrayne but toke of the doores and wyndowes to make up stake with.”

So hopeless was the outlook that the lord mayor appealed to the various trade gilds to know
what contributions their occupations and mysteries would be willing to give to stem the tide of
pauperism. ‘They were especially asked to support the poor bedesfolk in St. Antony’s house.”

® York Munic. Rec. xx, fol. 9, 16 Feb. 1551. ® Tbid. fol. 102, 4 June 1551.
7 Ibid. ™ Ibid. xxi, fol. 11a, 25 Sept. 1553.
78 Ibid. fol. 114, 4, 31 Oct. 1556. ™ Thid. xxii, fol. 66, June 1557.

3 465 59

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The City Council continued its hopeless task of grappling with the pauper problem. A large
quantity of coal was bought and distributed amongst the most necessitous. ‘The greatest pressure was
brought to bear on the wealthy class to induce them to give fixed annual contributions, so that the
gifts, though voluntary, might be dealt with systematically and more efficiently. The Lord
President and Council of the North set an excellent example by responding to the appeal. “Tt was
declared openly to the sayd worshypfull presense by my lord mayor that the Lord President and
Counsell hath sent unto hym £6 135. towards relief of the poore of this citie and further hath
promysed to gyve no lesse quarterly.’

But the year 1569 was marked in York by a spirited effort to deal with the poor by supplying
them with work.

That the poore folke of this citie suche as are found hable to doo some work shalbe brought by the
constable of every parishe where they dwell unto Saynt Georges Hous where the citie wooll lieth then
and there to be proved by the aldermen wardens and twenty-four with thadoyse of Roger Lighe
clothier, what they can doo and suche of them as can doo ought or are meete to learne to have wooll
delyvered theym by dyscreton of suche as have charge thereof to worke and the said Roger to do his
digligens to instruct such of the sayd poore as he shall perceyve not perfect to thintent that by lyttle
and lyttle there may be of the sayd poore sufficient to serve the turne. And such as he shall see hable
and not willyng to labor or learne to labor to informe the said lord mayor and aldermen thereof that
they may be further ordred accordyng to the lawes and state of the realme. And first the poor of
Monkward to be had to the seyd St. Georges Hous to be improved as is aforesaid on Friday next at
vili of the clock before noon and that soo soon as houses for workyng and other necessaries to the same
can be convenyently prepared in readynes it is thought good that for triall of the diligence and work
of every the sayd clothiers by hymself the sayd Rahyner shall have St. George hous and Roger
Ligh St. Anthonys with some other hous to work in in wynter and also that the sayd Rayner in the
meane tyme shall declare to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen what he will make and [be] bound with
surties for performance of the same.”®

It must be remembered that these regulations were drawn up seven years before Parliament
dealt with the same subject.”

A rigorous overhauling of the system by which certain privileged beggars were licensed to
demand alms was undertaken. None were to beg without badges; the badges for each parish were
to be distinctive, and only to be obtained from the warden, and the number given out was
limited.’ Three months later an additional weekly rate was levied on aldermen of 6d., on the
twenty-four of 4d., on all who had held the office of chamberlain of 3d. But it was not only
the civic officials who paid this tax ; ‘the moste substantyll of every paroche’ were assessed at 4d.
per week.’®

In the mean time, the municipal weaving enterprise was so successful that the promoters found
they had a new difficulty to face: the weavers had not sufficient raw material to keep them
employed. By the February of 1570 the aldermen were ordering four pair of shears to be bought
for dressers of the city cloth, ‘and also that spyners shalbe spedy as well of the country as citie
to spynne so that the websters may have suffycent work.’ ® A complaint was brought forward
that the cloth was too expensive, but Mr. Andrew Trewe, who had settled the price at which it
should be offered for sale, proved his faith in his valuation by buying in all the cloth ready for
sale at the price fixed.*! The sale of the cloth took place in the city hall on Ousebridge, and in
spite of complaints a fair amount of trade must have been done, for a few days previous ‘ £52 10s.
in a bagge £13 135. 8d. and a bill of Cs. and a goblet gilt of Edward Temple for gage of 40s.’ had
been given to the lord mayor by the auditors.

No trouble was spared to ensure success, for the July following Roger Lee, superintendent of
the enterprise, and one of the chamberlains were sent into Lincolnshire, where the best wool was
to be bought, to get a supply. Three or four hundred stones being required, £40 was given to
them to expend. It seems probable that this anxiety to provide work for the pauper population
was part of a scheme for trying to restore York to its position as the centre of the spinning and
weaving industry of the county, for at the same time elaborate instructions were being given to the
burgesses to obtain from Parliament for the city the sole right of sealing all the cloth made
throughout the whole county.** The master of the fellowship of merchants was appointed, with the
assistance of the searchers of the company of walkers and shearmen, to examine the quality of the
cloth. Unfortunately, their verdict was that it was unsatisfactory owing to some negligence on

© York Munic. Rec. xxiv, fol. 702, 21 Mar. 1567. © Ibid. fol. 1384, 18 May 1569.
7 Stat. 18 Eliz. cap. 3. York. Munic. Rec. xxiv, fol. 1434, 23 June 1569.
Ibid. fol. 1574, 16 Sept. 1569. ” Thid. fol. 1914, 14 Feb. 1570.
5! Ibid. fol. 1964, 31 Mar. 1570. * Ibid. fol. 1924, 3 Mar. 1570.
8 Ibid. fol. 2094, 21 July 1570. “ Ibid. fol. 2254, 2 Mar. 1571.

466

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

the part of the clothier, i.e. the cloth dresser, who was rebated {4 of his salary for his neglect.®
Obviously the York Municipal Council did not intend forcing inferior goods on the market on the
plea of charitable intentions.

But while York had been busy in its provincial court with schemes of poor relief and attempts to
eliminate the sturdy beggar and alleviate the lot of the deserving poor, the national legislature had, as
the result of endless discussion, produced a bill dealing with the whole subject.*® Practically the bill
followed the lines on which York had worked for years. A comparison of the Act of 1572 with the
regulations drawn up by the York Aldermen’s Court in 1551*® brings out clearly that legislation was
undertaken rather to meet the wants of the rural districts than to force a new policy on the
corporate towns. Still, the general interest which the parliamentary discussions of 1571-2 excited
reacted on the York people, for there was a demand for greater accommodation for the poor,
and the court order in 1574 that ‘Saynt Thomas Hospitall, Saynt Antony’s Hospital, Trynitie
Hospitall, and Saynt Johns Hall shall be viewed with all convenient spede by the Lord Mayour
and Mr. Wardens to see if the same places or howe many of theym be mete places for settyng
of the said poore.’ ®

The system of parish apprentices, which later assumed such large proportions and under
which such appalling enormities were to be committed, was inaugurated in York under
Elizabeth. The first entry in the Records bearing on the subject shows a somewhat compli-
cated arrangement.

Hugh Barton taylar shall have to apprentice Willm. Sutton a poore boye for terme of tenne yeares
from Candlemas last and that the same Hughe shall have v4. lent hym of the Common Chamber
money for a yere soe that he putt in sufficient sureties for repayment thereof. And nowe Mr. Recorder
the aldermen shyrffes and twenty-four were assessed by the presens to pay for the clothing of the said
poore boye as followeth., viz., Mr. Recorder viiid. Mr. Appleyard and Mr. Bean either of theym xiid.
and the rest of the aldermen viiid. apece and the sheriffs and twenty-four vid. apece.®

Truly the 16th-century civic dignitary found his office no sinecure. The aged, the impotent,
and the lame poor were all housed in Saint Antony’s Hall or Saint Thomas Hospital or Trinity
Hall, but in spite of their age and affliction they were put to work at the most toilsome and
disagreeable sort of employment, the spinning of ‘lyne,’ hemp and tow, ‘to helpe to get some part
of their relief.’

This period of activity with regard to the treatment of the poor was followed by a period of
inertia, But in 1583 the office of head beggars was abolished, the holders retiring on a small
pension.”

In 1586 vagrancy had again increased to such an extent that St. Antony’s Hall had to be
enlarged ‘and a hows to be made there for the correcton of rooges and three chaynes and a clogge
to be made for punnyshment of such rooges as will not work.’* An Act had been passed by
Parliament in 1576 * ordering houses of correction to be erected in every county, but this is
the first allusion to one in York.

In 1587 a very comprehensive set of rules was drawn up by the city council. A general view
of the poor was ordered; they were to be divided into classes ; those not born in the city were to be
banished ; those who remained were to be classified. In the first division the aged, lame, and
impotent and those past work were placed; to these a minimum sum of 13d., ‘ under which some a
poore creator cannot lyve,’ was paid daily. The second division included all those able to work.
The civic officials provided the work, the amount varying in proportion to the provider’s
dignity. Each alderman had to keep four men at work, the twenty-four two men, and those who
had held the office of chamberlain had to provide for one or two. Into the last class went the
rogues, vagabonds, strange beggars, and such as would not work, who were to be sent to the
house of correction or banished from the city. An entirely novel feature was the appointment in
each street of two or three people whose business it was to punish the last class either by the
stocks or sending them to the house of correction,

because it is an infynitt truble to go to the Alderman of the ward with every beggar and
roge that wander abroade, and it wilbe a means that beggars and roges knowinge that in every street
there are suche men appoynted to punishe them they will be afrade to straye abroade.

An embryo Elberfeld system, but punishment substituted for reward.
Realizing the difficulty of restraining the injudicious giver, it was enacted that in every street
there should be secret spies to report those who served beggars. It had been customary to relax the

8 York Munic. Rec. xviii, fol. 246, 3 July 1571. Stat. 14 Eliz. cap. 5. *” See above..
§ York Munic. Rec. xxv, fol. 1144, 15 Feb. 1574. ®9 Tbid. " Ibid. fol. 124¢, 16 Apr. 1 574.
% Thid. xxviii, fol. 108, 23 Aug. 1583. * Ibid. xxix, fol. gz, May 1586.

% Stat. 18 Eliz. cap. 3.
467

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

orders against begzing on the Saints’ days and the great feasts, but there was to be no such exception in
the future ‘because it savoureth of popery.’ Begging at the Minster door was also prohibited.
Great care was enjoined on those who had the handling of the money, lest ‘it turne to the great
grudge of them that pay ther money.’ One clause has a very modern ring.

That labourers wyfes and children may be barred from going a begginge and that there
husbands who get sufficient to maintayne them withal may be restrained from the ale house where
they drink all that should mayntene ther poore wifes and children at home. ™

Up to the last decade of the 16th century the only work provided by the municipal authori-
ties for the employment of the paupers was spinning and weaving ; but in 1590 Robert Hall, a poor
man, was given 55. out of the common chamber to buy silk for making buttons,” and the following
October a house was taken in St. Saviourgate where poor children were taught to knit. The
lord mayor seems to ‘have interested himself greatly in developing this new branch of relief. A
special messenger was sent to Lincoln to the knitters there in order to buy £10 worth of wool best
suited for the purpose.” Francis Newbie was given a reward of Ios. ‘in respect of the paynes to
be taken in the Knittinge scole amongst the scollers.’°* The school must have been of consider-
able size, for three teachers were employed. Francis Newbie received a quarterly wage of 16s. 8d.
The overseers of the school certified to the aldermen that Newbie’s ‘scollers sytt in a cold rawe
hall,’ and desired that ‘a lowe parler with a lowe galarye for his scollers to work in’ should be
provided.*® The request was granted, and it wasalso agreed ‘ That such of the poore children at the
Knittinge scole as stand neede of Coots shall have coots of the cheapest graye that can be gotten.”

On the whole there is little evidence in the court book to show any great difficulty in
collecting the poor-rate. Eleven people were summoned in 1593 at one time, and paid. There
isa hint that those who paid willingly were protected against the importunity of the insolent
wastrels, for in the case of William Hewell, a pauper who had been generously treated while he
was sick, but had turned into a haunter of alehouses, a valiant beggar, ‘threatening or reviling with
unseemely and evill words not only such as deny or refuse to give him money of whom he craveth,
but also some others within this ctttye who pay weekly in their parishe towards the relief of the pore.’ |

Thomas Mayson, obstinately refusing to pay his contribution amounting to 75. 1d., ‘is comyt
to ward ther to remayne until he do pay the same.’

But relief was not solely confined to inhabitants of York. In 1593 two applications ? for relief
were made by the lord mayor of a very romantic kind ; both met with a ready response. Thirty shillings
were given to ‘a German, a stranger late comed to this Cittie, whoas it is reported tothis Court is a
student in divinitee, brother to a prince in Germany, and since he came into England was robbed
of his money and jewells.’* A very strong appeal was also made to all the justices of
the peace, mayors, sheriffs, and churchwardens in Yorkshire on behalf of Martin Lascaris,
who, ‘a Christiane and a Greciane, borne of a verie good house in the Cittie of Phillip
in Macedonia,’ was together with ‘his father, mother, bretherin, sister, uncle, and aunts, with all
their parentage and familie,’ taken prisoner by ‘the great Turke.’ The sole crime brought against
these unhappy creatures, if the petition were correct in its details, was that they ‘ Harboured and hid
in their houses many Christians that were under the tirannie of the Turke.’ By the intercession
of the Patriarch of Constantinople and many Christian ambassadors, Lascaris had been released in
order to try to beg the ransom of his relations.4

‘Towards the end of the 16th century the harvests failed, the price of corn rose to an unpre-
cedented height, and famine stalked the land. ‘The Government tried to minimize the disaster by
admitting foreign corn custom free, but they attributed the universal distress to another cause.
The Council wrote an urgent letter to the Archbishop of York, in which they emphasized the
moral aspect of the visitation.

It is thoughte meete that generall warninge should be given and speciall order taken that all
sortes of persons may be contented and restrayned to use more moderate dyet, and especiallye her
Ma** in regarde of greate scarsetye would have order taken for the forbearinge of suppers on fastinge
dayes and on Wednesdayes and Fridayes at nighte.’ ®

The money due to this abstinence was to be given to the poor, and as a sign of the time when
poor relief was to become more a national than a municipal undertaking, the names of those who
disregarded the order were to be sent by the churchwardens to the bishop, who was to pass them
on to the archbishop, who gave them in to the Privy Council.

. a ma Rec. i fol. 4, 5,6; 9 Feb. 1587. ea fol. 1474, 28 Nov. 1590.
id. fol. 1964, 2 Oct. 1590. Ibid. fi
8 Ibid. 6 ae 1593. fol. © Thid. xxx, ied eae
1” Ibid. fol. 314, 25 Sept. 1593. ‘ Ibid. fol. 384, 29 Oct. 1593.
* Thid. * Ibid. fol. 574, 16 Feb. 1593. * Ibid. fol. 1274, 11 July 1595
* Ibid. fol. 241, 19 Jan. 1596. * Tbid. fol. 2418.

468

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

The following year another attempt was made by the municipality to plant a new industry in York
as a means of giving employment to the poor. ‘Thomas Lewkener of Hartelpole in the county of
Duresme gentleman on thone partye and Christofer Beckwith Lord Mayor of the Cittye of Yorke
and the Comonaltye of the same cittye on thother partye’ entered into an agreement by which
Lewkener undertook to begin ‘ the arte misterye or occupation of making of fustions’ and continue
the trade for ten years. During that period he was to instruct

and kepe fiftye persons at the Leaste and more as his habillitye shall serve of the porer sorte
inhabitynge in this cittye on worke in cardinge and spynninge of cotton woll . . . and shall
wekelye paie unto them waiges for their worke accordinge as they shall earne after the rate of twelve
pence the pound spyneing and cardinge and to pay the Lord Mayor an annual sum of four pounds.

The municipality on their part undertook that Lewkener should be granted the freedom of the city
without payment, should have the monopoly of making fustian within the city during the term
mentioned in the bond, and to let to him St. George’s House to inhabit and work in rent free.®

The knitting school which had engaged the energies of the city council for many years was
discovered to be in an unsatisfactory condition. The head had neglected to take apprentices, so that
if he died or went away there was great danger that the trade would die out. He was summoned
before the mayor and aldermen, but upon promising that he would take and keep always three
apprentices he was dismissed with a warning.’

In 1597 Parliament passed a comprehensive series of Acts dealing with the poor. It was,
however, not until 1600 that the mayor and aldermen took any steps to put the Acts in force, and
their action then was only due to a peremptory letter from the Council signed by Burghley. The
response to ‘the Act for the punyshment of Rogues, Vagabonds and Sturdy Beggars ’® was that the
house of correction was newly furnished with a mill for grinding malt. The aldermen, ‘ beginning
first with the ancienste,’ were called upon to provide malt to keep the mill at work. A wood
mortar and mill for ‘beatinge of hempe’ was set up, but the hemp was not requisitioned from the
aldermen. For purely punitive measures four manacles and two collars were provided. An officer
was appointed to superintend the punishment of the rogues, but as he was already superintendent of
the knitting school and taught the children to spin, he could not have had much leisure for the
criminals. He was given quarters rent free at St. George’s House, a salary of 40s. yearly, and an
additional penny for every one sent for correction for each day the delinquent stayed, with additional
allowance for his rations.!°

On arriving at the house of correction the unfortunate men or women were to be ‘ whipped
till his or her bodye be bloodye,’ and then set to work. If they were refractory and refused to work
the punishment was to be repeated until they did work. But if they were willing and able to
work, they were to receive payment. "The diet of the idle was bread and water, of those who
were willing but unskilful ‘ coarse bread and small aile,’ but such as were willing and skilful were
given ‘pottage made of such offall as may be had at the shambles or of sodne beanes.’? ‘These
luxuries were to be bought out of the payment for work done, supplemented by an allowance from
the poor fund. In no circumstances were the overseers to advance more than 13d. per day. Ifany
of the inmates showed signs of a desire to run away, they were to be locked to a post by hand, foot,
or neck. ‘They were to be detained at least twenty-one days, unless someone would take them into
his service for a year and enter bond to the extent of £5 to the corporation for them.

Vagrants and vagabonds were not the only class who went in terror of the house of correction.
‘Comon blasformers, comon dronkards, comon Raylors or scolds’ could be sent there by magistrates
or ministers and punished either in body or purse." The overseers seem to have kept a careful
watch over the welfare of those they boarded out. William Burland had taken the relief but failed
to do his duty by Anne Whitfeld, for ‘she hath no clothes to put on neither is by him in any sort
releved.’ She was at once placed with someone else and no further payment made to him.”

In 1607 a new and startling state of affairs was reported by the churchwardens and overseers :
“the assessements maide for the releif of the poore within the cittie doth amount unto a full sixte
parte more than is distributed wekelye to the poore.’% Collections were ordered to cease for the
two months following. It is impossible to say whether this satisfactory state of affairs can be traced
to the Statute of 1597, or to the cessation of the plague, which had raged fiercely in the city during
the first four years of the 17th century.

There seems to have been a general tendency during the early 17th century to treat the sick
poor with more leniency. The overseer and churchwardens presented the cases, but the Aldermen’s
Court constantly ordered additional relief, which was either levied on the stock of the parish, or

§ York Munic. Rec. xxxi, fol. 301, 14 Oct. 1597. "Ibid. fol. 3414, 10 Apr. 1598.

8 Ibid. xxxii, fol. 67, 31 Jan. 1599. ° Stat. 39 Eliz. cap. 4.

¥ Ibid. fol. 109, 10 Sept. 1600. ** Ibid. xxxiti, fol. 742, 30 June 1607.

469

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

derived from an occasional additional dole out of the Common Chamber. So great were the demands
on the poor relief during times of plague that official salaries were stopped,

for that the infeccon tyme was great charge to this cittye in releivinge of ther poore and then
forced to borrowe muche money and to make great assessements to releeve them withall and no fees
paide that yeare to anie officers.

But individual cases were often helped by the Council.

Anthonye Cuthberte a poore lame man who is to goe to St. Anne of Buckstones hopeing ther to
gett recoverie of his health shall have vs. given hym forth of some of the best stocks of the parishes in
this cittie.

The sufferers who were in the pauper hospitals, such as St. George’s House and St. Katherine's
House, were frequently ordered additional relief ‘in their great misery and disease.’* Doctors were
often rewarded ‘forth of the comon chambre’ if they had shown particular activity on behalf of the
poor,” though occasionally the council lent its aegis to the quack. ‘John Grai a travilor a
chirurgeon being skilful namelie esspeciallie as he saieth in fowre diseases,’ was licensed to practise in
York. He claimed that he could cure ‘those that have wanted their sights this twentie yeares past
within neyne daies to recover ther sight.’ Again, in 1611, there was more money in hand than
paupers to receive it.!? From time to time the saddest examples of people who have fallen from a
better position come before the court. Lady Creplinge, who has fallen upon evil days, is given
pasturage for two kine on Tanghall fields, and ros. out of the Common Chamber,” and Mr. George
Rosse, ‘who now is much decayed in his estate,’ but was formerly sheriff of the city, was
given an annuity of £5.71 Money is fairly often given by the council to people taking their
children to London to be touched for the king’s evil.”

In 1614 a municipal medical officer was appointed at the annual salary of £3 6s. 8d. This
payment was ‘as well for his medicines or salves as for his paynes to be taken in cureing of such
poore people of this cittie which shall be sent unto hym by the Lord Maior.’

Nor were the pauper lunatics neglected. ‘Katherine Lee, distracted,’ was given into the care
of a surgeon, to minister the best help according to his judgement ‘ by giving her physick for the
curing of her, and that he shall have xxs. nowe at this instant and xls. more at Candlemas or when
he hath cured her.’ *4

In 1615 Alexander Carey approached the lord mayor and aldermen. He was willing to
teach twelve children to make bone lace, if in return he could have the use of their work for two
years, and a fee of 10s. for each apprentice ; he was, however, willing to return the fees at the
end of the two years. The Court eagerly accepted his offer, and the following Candlemas the
twelve children were set to work. In 1619 the Court discussed the advisability of putting the poor
to work as agricultural labourers on the fields and closes that were kept open between Michaelmas
and Lady Day, but nothing came of the discussion.”

A more important step was taken during the year 1619 ; alien immigrants had introduced
into Norwich the manufacture of what was called in 16th-century phraseology new stuffs ; that
is, worsted goods. | York, which always watched Norwich with a jealous eye, induced one of the
Norwich citizens, Edward Whalley, to settle in the city. He was given room in St. George’s
House to set up his looms, and the looms at St. Antony’s House were examined with a view to the
making of Norwich stuff there also.2”7,. Whalley was made a freeman without paying any fine.”

This setting of the Norwich man on work caused a great scandal in the city council. When in
1620 Alderman Dickenson, who had been appointed to look after the business, was called upon to
give an account of the expenditure of the municipal money, there was found to be a deficit for the
year of £105, £280 having been spent, towards which the city had contributed £126; and to
represent this capital expenditure there only remained looms, jersey, yarn spun, and other goods to
the value of £141, ‘and yet but a fewe poore children set on work.’ Alderman Dickenson was
also said to have acted without the consent of the court, and to have allowed it to be generally
reported that the works were his and at his charge. In view of these considerations, the lord mayor
and aldermen came to the conclusion that ‘to erect a newe manual occupation in this citty of
makinge Norwich stuffes would be to burdensome to this citty,’ that they already had sufficient on

“York Munic. Rec. xxxiii, fol. 73a, 23 May 1607.

8 Thid. fol. 1654, 23 June 1609. 6 Tbi
" Ibid fol. 124, 30 ys ee 1 Ibid fl soo ie Sek.
- Ibid. fol. 2502, 5 June 1611. * Tbid. xxxiii, fol. 1624, 23 May 1609,
ie Ibid. xxxiv, fol. 354, 25 May 1614. * Thid. fol. 784, 20 Oct. 1615.
. a rae 476, tae 1614. i Ibid. fol. 1692, 11 June 1619.
id. fol. 794, 1 Dec. 1615. Ibid. fol. 1774, 13 Oct. :
” Thid. fol. 1774, 13 Oct. 1619. * Ibid. fol oe ee Now. wae

470

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

hand teaching the poor to spin jersey and ‘other suchlike labours.’ Alderman Dickenson was
allowed to take over the whole business, to pay to the mayor and commonalty forty marks, the city
undertaking the loss of the £105. As the court were very desirous ‘to show furtherance’ to
Alderman Dickenson, he was allowed half St. George’s House, where the looms were, to carry on
his trade until the following May Day, the other half being used as a house of correction and
workhouse.”

It was considered that the doles given at funerals drew the poor from the neighbouring
villages into the city, and often away from their labour. The lord mayor and justices very wisely
decided that the custom should be abolished, but that the benevolent should be moved to send
contributions to the hospitals, churchwardens, and overseers.*® Apparently the relations of the
deceased did not respond generously to this request ; they reaped the advantage of quieter and more
decorous burials, but showed no inclination to express their gratitude in a practical form. In 1630
the court devised a plan for relieving the poor without the riotous scenes that used to disturb
the funcrals :

And now it is ordered that my Lord Maior forthwith after the death of any within this citty
shall send the overseers for the poore within the same parish to demand of the frends of the dead |
person some money to be distributed to the poor, which if they refuse to doo, then the poore to be
sett at liberty to go to the funerall to begg relief.

In 1629 the two chamberlains of the city also had taken a very sensible step. It had been an
immemorial custom for them to make a feast three times a year, at Easter, Whitsuntide, and
Christmas, to the lord mayor and aldermen. They proposed in the future to pay an offering of
20s. each to the poor in lieu of the feasting. The offer was accepted.*? The example of the
chamberlains was followed in 1651 by the sheriffs of the city, who offered to pay £50 each for the
use of the poor; in return, the mayor, aldermen, four-and-twenty, and commons, were to forgo
all invitations and feasts from them,*®

In 1632 another attempt was made to introduce a new manufacture into the city, in order
that the York poor should have an additional outlet for their energies. Mr. Alderman Hemsworth and
Mr. Sheriff Brooke offered, ‘of their owne accord,’ to ride to Kendal to see if they could induce a
fit man to come to the city to make Kendal cloth, so that the poor ‘may be sett on work.” A
new method of providing material for the poor to work up was adopted ; in each ward a man was
appointed to whom £10 was entrusted with which he was to buy material.** But the year 1632
was one of peculiar prosperity, and the poor relief was abated by one-fourth part. A clause,
however, was annexed to this enactment, by which anyone found harbouring foreigners or under-
setters should forfeit his abatement.

New spinning-wheels and cards were bought for all the hospitals, as also an additioral loom
for the weaving of such broad hangings as were already made there. In 1634 Wentworth, as
Lord President, wrote to exhort the lord mayor and aldermen to do their duty in taking care of the
poor of the city. The civic officials replied in a somewhat self-righteous manner, and gave a résumé
of the satisfactory work they had accomplished in the last few years.*®

The widows in St. Thomas’s Hospital complained to the court that Isabel Denis and Marie
Bainbridge ‘were lewd women given to drunkenesse and have abused those widdowes and breed
mutch disquietnesse in the said hospitall by their scowlding and other wicked corses.” The court
sentenced the delinquents to have ‘their neck set severally in the Iron in the thew,’ before the door
of the hospital.*”

By 1655 a more humane treatment of the refractory pauper had become established. In the
instructions drawn up for a committee of twelve appointed to superintend the employment of the
poor, the most serious punishment even suggested for those that refused to work was that they
should receive ‘noe warde money or allowance from the citty until they conforme and work’ ; 8 the
lash, which half a century earlier was constantly resorted to, had passed out of the category of
possible punishments for idleness.®®

Little was done after the Restoration to provide work for the unemployed, but a step in the
direction of providing for the orphans of the city was taken in 1669. ‘The free school at Sherburn
chad figured frequently in the city records. Many York youths had been sent there, and the
corporation decided it would be better to erect a house at Sherburn with ‘a kitching and a chamber
for the poor orphants of this cittye that learnes at Sherburn.’

® York Munic. Rec. fol. 2952, 10 Nov. 1620. % Tbid. fol. 64¢, 7 July 1615.

5! Tbid. xxxv, fol. 98a, 17 Feb. 1630. * Tbid. fol. 802, 22 Mar. 1629.

3 Thid. xxxvii, fol. 234, 15 Oct. 1651. * Ibid. xxxv, fol. 1682, 8 May 1632.
% Ibid. fol. 183, 29 Oct. 1632. °° Ibid. fol. 2474, 15 Sept. 1634.

7 Thid. xxxvi, fol. 1584, 11 Oct. 1645. *° Ibid. fol. 814, 5 Mar. 1655.

8° Ibid. xxxii, fol. 972, 13 June 1600. Ibid. xxxviii, fol. 504, 16 May 1669.

471

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

The rent or a house at Middleham was conferred on Isaac Primrose, ‘a poore scholler at the
University of Cambridge, for his education there.’*? Mr. Ayckroyd was given £10 to take him to
the University and buy him some clothes. Mr. Wright, scrivener, was to have an increase of salary
for teaching the city’s poor children.4? But the young were not neglected. The three children of
Samuel Brown were boarded out, and he was ordered to pay 6d. weekly for their support, and in
case he refused he was to be sent to the house of correction and kept at hard work.* ;

A pamphlet written by Henry Arth of Wakefield in 1597 gives an interesting glimpse of the
poor in his native town.‘ It is improbable that experiments in ‘setting the poore on worke’ were
conducted in the same lavish manner as they were in York; still, it is abundantly clear that
the town adopted in the main the plans of York, though possibly Wakefield had not initiated the
policy, but only followed in the steps of the legislature. At least Henry Arth constantly
refers to the action of her Majesty, the Council, and the Government with excessive admiration. He

is evidently proud of the system of his own town,

where there is not onelie a house of correction, accordinge to the Lawe, but withall, certaine
stockes of money put forth into honest clothiers handes, who are bounde with good sureties, to set all
the able poore to worke, after five pence, or six pence a pound of wool spinning (as they shall deserve)
if they will fetch it.

It does not seem that workhouses had been erected in Wakefield. He strongly advocates a forfeiture
of 12d. for every one who absented himself from church. The sum gained by this means, with the
amount arising from the Wednesday suppers, would, he maintained, be ‘ sufficient releefe for the poore
in all places.’ He is especially hard on the ‘ breeders of the poor,’ as he terms those who commit

the sins he enumerates :—

. All excessive proude persons in apparell.

. The unmeasurable wasters of meate and drinke.

. The importable oppression of many landlords.

The unconscionable extortion of all usurers.

. The insatiable covetousnesse in corne mongers.

The wilfull wrangling in law matters.

. The immoderate abuse of gamming in all countreys.
The discharging of servants and apprentices.

. The general abuse of all Gods benefites.

The want of execution of good lawes and statutes.

OS PI AMP po

Unfortunately the West Riding Sessions Roll does not bear out the idea that Wakefield was
exceptionally good to its poor, for twice in 1597 and 1598 the justices issued warrants against the
inhabitants for not paying their poor-rate.*®

A graphic illustration of the scandal and horror of the scenes which often took place at the
funerals of the great is given in an account of the burial of George, late Earl of Shrewsbury, at

Sheffield in 1592 :—

For these were, by the report of such as served the dole unto them, the number of eight thousand,
and they thought that there were almost as many more that could not be served through their unruliness.
Yea the press was so great that diverse were slain and many hurt : and further it is reported of credible
persons that well estimated the number of all the said beggars that they thought there was about
twenty thousand.

But Sheffield seems to have been exceptionally poverty-stricken, for in 1615, when the population
only reached 2,207 people, 725 were paupers.’”

The West Riding is fortunate in possessing some early Sessions Rolls, 1597-8—1602, and
although at the date of the roll the assessment for the maintenance of the poor had been taken out of
the hands of the justices, and placed in those of the parish officials, still cases occur which illustrate
the administration of the law, because the new method that displaced the system prescribed by the
statute 14 Eliz. cap. 3 did not at first work smoothly.*® Before 1597 the unit of assessment had
been the division, but the new statute made each individual parish answerable for its own poor.
Thus the justices, though no longer called upon to assess the poor-rate, had to decide whether the

# Ibid. fol. 2114, 29 Oct. 1684. ? ' Peron cen

. West Riding Sessions Rolls (Yorks. Arch. Assoc. Rec. Ser. iil), 43, 118

* The Fall of Religious Houses. Cole MS. xii, fol. 2¢ : W. Cunnin

“ J. Hunter, Hallemshire, 148. ; - i aaa a)

“J. Lister, West Riding Sessions Rolls (Yorks. Arch. Assoc. Rec. Ser. iii), pp. xxviii-xxxviii.

472

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

wapentake of Staincross ought to be assessed to maintain the poor of Barnsley, and resolved that
the money obtained from the wapentake must be returned. But the most important and valuable
records concerning the management of the poor contained in theroll are the so-called Knaresborough
orders, ‘The second of these orders is especially interesting ; it shows that the people of the Knares-
borough district preferred the old voluntary system to the new money rating. ‘They petitioned that
‘the poore may be suffered to begg and aske relief abroad throughout the parishe.” The justices
granted the request, urging as an excuse for their strained interpretation of the clause in the statute
dealing with the subject, ‘ for that many are able to give releefe which are not able to give money.’ ™

Naturally the chief object of the parochial officials was to keep down the poor-rate. “There was
therefore the very strongest incentive for them to try to prove that anyone in need of poor relief was
a vagabond or vagrant,” not born in the parish, and that therefore he was to be sent to his native place.
It was by no means improbable that on his way thither he would be arrested and sent to the house
of correction, for the maintenance of these institutions fell on the county, not the parish, so that
this method of shifting their responsibilities was popular. After the passing of the Bill of 1597, so
great was the desire of each parish to put the onus of maintenance on to some other parish that the
highways were crowded with these homeless and houseless creatures seeking a domicile.* One of
the Knaresborough orders dealt with this difficulty in a summary way. As people after being
domiciled for some twenty years are being driven away, therefore it is enacted that a residence of
three years entitles people to relief.®

The Sessions Rolls give no details of any schemes of work for the unemployed for the West
Riding, but the justices order the wardens and overseers ‘to enforce every of them refusinge to
worke, or found idle and out of worke, to labour in such sorte and with such personnes as they
shall thinke fitt.°* These orders do not touch upon the question of the erection of abiding and working
houses *” for the poor, though from one of the orders issued by the justices it is clear that some
house of the kind was at Doncaster. The order is an excellent example of the ruthless manner in
which in their anxiety to rid themselves of the impotent poor the officials acted.

Whereas one Gregorie Shawe late of Dancaster hath dwelt and remayned in Dancaster for a longe
space and hath during that tyme bene twise married and afterwards placed in an hospitall, notwithstand-
ing all which the Maior of Dancaster hath by colour of the statute for the releif of poore, taken hym
forth of the said Hospitall and sent hym to the place of his birth contrary to the meanyng of that statute :
Yt is therefore ordered that a Warr. p. Cur. shalbe made to the said Maior to receive hym agayne and
provide for his releif according to the said Statute.®

It has been suggested that these orders were drawn up for the guidance of the county justices
by the Council of the North.*® The North Riding Quarter Sessions Records throw a flood of light
on the administration of the Poor Law during the Stuart period. A pathetic case of filial ingratitude
was brought to the notice of the justices at Helmsley in 1619.

Whereas it appears to the Justices at this Sessions that John Simon, an old man, hath sett over his
whole estate unto his sonne Will Simon, and that since his said sonne, being very wealthie and of good
abilitie, hath suffered his said father to live in great wante and miserie, and doth carie himself verie
disobedientlie and unnaturally towardes his said father : and whereas the said justices, in open Sessions
did, according to the law, order that the said Will Simon shall releive his father from time to time as
should be thought fitt by the justices and shall be bound with good suerties in good summes of monie
until his said father shall release him : and for as much as the said Will Simon did in Courte obstinatelie
refuse to perform the said order, he was committted to York Castle.

Transgressors against the enactment that each cottage should have 4 acres of ground attached
to it, a measure preventive of pauperism, frequently appeared before the justices. The year 1607
furnishes fourteen examples of breach of this law,®! but the cases are rare from that date to 16 34,
they cease entirely until 1647, when they recur again, and are frequent until 1672.

The houses of correction at Pickering, Thirsk, and Richmond are frequently referred to. The
first suggestion with regard to such an institution at Richmond was made in 1610, but it was not
until 1619 “ that it was in working order. George Shawe of Leeds, clothier, was appointed master
at a salary of £50 a year. The following year an order for looms and irons to be placed there
was given. Evidently Richmond was providing profitable employment for its paupers.

J. Lister, West Riding Sessions Rolls (Yorks. Arch. Assoc. Rec. Ser. ili), 26. °° Ibid. 75.

*! Mr. Lister thinks that this system of voluntary poor relief was not adopted in many—if any other—
_ divisions of the Riding. Ibid. p. xxxi.

9 Stat. 39 Eliz. cap. 4. *® Stat. 18 Eliz. cap. 3. * J. Lister, op. cit. p. xxxiii.

% Sessions R. ut sup. 85. 5° Tbid. 86. 7 Stat. 39 Eliz. cap. 5. *° Sessions R. ut sup. 105.

“? E. M. Leonard, op. cit. 170. Quarter Sessions Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.) v, 137, 210.

“ Thid. ii, 110, 229. % Thid. 235, 26 Apr. 1620.

3 473 60

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

Canon Atkinson, whose local knowledge was so extensive that to differ is audacious, ree 4
put a somewhat strained interpretation on looms as some kind of punitive instrument. At
looms were frequently placed in the houses of correction, and although none of the ae oe s
it clear, it is quite possible that the three houses of correction for the county served the twofo
purpose of a place where rogues were punished and where work was found for the deserving poor,

As a rule the distinction between the orders made by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of York
and those made at the Quarter Sessions is that the York civic authorities were more humanitarian,
but with regard to housing the poor the county was in advance of the city. On several occasions
the justices of the peace gave order that suitable cottages should be built for the homeless. An
order was issued at the Richmond Quarter Session on 10 October 1620 :—

That whereas there was a frame erected for a house to be builded upon a waiste peece of
ground in Long Cowton to harbour and releeve Will Dawson his wife and children, which was lait
pulled down by Ralph Huton gent™ and others—on full consideration by the Court it is ordered
that the said house shalbe presentlie built up again by the parishioners of Long Cowton at their own
charge, and sett in the same place where it stood before.®

Several houses for the poor were built at Brompton and Lastingham.”

Political animus played its part in providing for the necessities of the poor. The Yorkshire
Parliamentary ‘Puritans satisfied their hatred of the stage, their dislike of their opponents, and their
desire to be charitable at the expense of others, in an order passed at a meeting of the Quarter

Sessions held on 10 July 1655 :—

The constables and overseers of Gillinge to levy 5s. on the goods of the Lord Fairfax to be
distributed to the poor according to ordinaunce of parliament, for that it hath been proved that he
was present when Tho. Carlton, Anth. Chapman and others acted a comedy or staige play at
Gillinge at Christmas last ; the like order to the constable and overseers of Oulton against Lord
Castleton ; the like order to the constable and overseers of Bransby against Mr. Cholmeley.

The study of the efforts made by the local authorities in a large town like York, or by the
justices in the different Ridings, makes it clear that many of the schemes of the latter-day humani-
tarians have already been tried by 16th and 17th-century philanthropists, and abandoned as futile.
In no town in England were more persistent and strenuous endeavours made by the municipality
to supply work for the unemployed, the amount of money left by charitable bequests to York ought
to have ensured its perpetual exemption from a poor-rate, but even in the 1gth century it has
furnished data for ‘A Study in Poverty.” No more convincing proof of the futility of a system of
municipal doles can be found than in the steady but rapid growth of the pauper list in the York
Municipal Records.

It is difficult to realize, as one travels through the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire, along
the monotonous roads, lined with continuous houses, which link together huge towns, where dense
populations focus round busy mills or noisy ironworks, that as late as the 16th century the greater
part of these congested regions was uninclosed and uninhabited lands. The treatment of York-
shire as an economic unit, when the inclosure question is involved, is entirely misleading ; no two
counties of England offer to-day greater physical, industrial, and economic differences than the East
and West Ridings, and this differentiation appears even in the early 16th century. This is no
mere matter of inference or conjecture ; the Inquisition of 1517 © furnishes indubitable evidence of
the general economic conditions prevailing at that time. However greatly opinion may differ as to
the interpretation of the facts gathered by Wolsey’s commissioners, no glosses or explanatory clauses
can obliterate the startling differences that existed between the two Ridings. The first business of
the commission was to inquire into the amount of inclosing that had gone on during the previous
twenty-seven and a half years, the ultimate object being to discover whether the statement that the
depopulation and distress was due to the conversion of arable into pasture land was true, or was the
expression of the chronic discontent of poverty.

_The North Riding was first visited. The acreage of this division is to-day 1,361,465 acres.
During the period over which the inquiry extends, almost thirty years, 2,708 acres had been
inclosed, 628 acres in order to give greater facilities for the chase ; 2,100 acres had been con-
verted from arable to pasture land. In the inquisition taken by the Commissioners specific
information is also given of the effects of the change. Thirty-seven ploughs had been put down,
forty-four people had left the neighbourhood, and twenty-one messuages were in a state of dilapidation.”

: Quarter Sessions Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.), ii, 253. " Ibid. v, 24, 223 1 Oct. i650,

y Ibid. v, 186. ; * I. S. Leadam, ‘ The Inquisition of 1517,’ Hist. Soc. Trans. (New. Ser.) vii, 219 et seq.
a" ” Mr, Leadam conjectures that 128 people were evicted, as the houses that were in ruins must have had
Inhabitants,

474

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

The cottages that had fallen into ruins were eight in number, and five of these are
mentioned on land where six ploughs had been at work not long before. In three cases only
are the evictions on a scale sufficiently great to leave a permanent impression on the agricultural
development of the district. At South Cowton’! 120 acres were changed from arable into pasture
land, 4 ploughs were disused, 4 houses had fallen into decay, and 20 people had left the neighbourhood.
At Southolme” 20 people were ejected, 5 ploughs rendered useless, 80 acres of arable land, and 40
of meadow turned into pasture. The evicting landlord was William Fairfax, Chief Justice of
the Common Pleas. A case at East Tanfield” presents a difficulty ; it is clearly stated that 400
acres of arable were changed into pasture land, and 8 houses were thrown down, but no mention is
made of change of population, or of the putting down of any ploughs. Whether this is due to the
carelessness of the scribe, to a desire to minimize the evil results of the change, or whether the
ploughs and workers were simply transferred to another part of the estate, is difficult to decide.
Mr. Leadam takes it as a case of 32 people—that is, four to each house—having been evicted. ‘The
North Riding furnishes unimpeachable evidence of two serious cases of the conversion of arable to
pasture land, considerable hardship being involved ; one doubtful case, two cases where two houses
were thrown down, and one case where several cottages were destroyed. Considering that a period
of twenty-seven years and a large area is included, investigation proves that the theory of the
transformation of arable into pasture land to any appreciable extent is untenable except on the
assumption that the commissioners were corrupt and the commission futile.

The acreage of the West Riding is 1,771,562 ; 2,345 acres were inclosed between 1489 and
1517, but 1,812 acres were taken from the manor waste for purposes of pleasure, no economic
change being involved. Thus only 533 acres were inclosed from motives of cupidity, with the
result that 12 houses, 4 cottages, and ‘certa messuagia” were decayed, 16 ploughs no longer worked,
and §8 people, according to the strict letter of the report, or 94 according to Mr. Leadam’s
interpretation, were evicted. A flagrant case, however, occurred at Templenewsam ; Lord
Darcy, for the purposes of the chase, took 40 acres of arable and 40 acres of wood, and caused
4 houses, 4 cottages, and 4 ploughs to be disused. There is no reference to the number of evictions.”
There was little ecclesiastical inclosure in the West Riding,” although the Abbot of Kirkstall
gained an unenviable notoriety as an evictor. At Moretoun 3 houses were thrown down,
3 ploughs no longer worked, and 12 people rendered homeless by his orders.* But his disregard of
the well-being of his tenants fades into insignificance before the policy of Henry Pudsey, lord of
the manor of Rimington and Bolton in Bowland.” He converted 100 acres of arable into
pasture, knocked down ‘ certa messuagia,’ and evicted practically a whole village, for 30 people had
to seek new habitations. He next turned his attentions to Bolton, where he summarily drove out
12 tenants, A case of this kind, one landlord answerable for 42 evictions, lends colour to the
contention that Yorkshire suffered greatly from the rapacity of landlordism. It is, however, a
proof that evictions and conversions were exceptional. The Inquisition chronicles 58 evictions. As
the Abbot of Kirkstall and Henry Pudsey account for 54 of these, the remaining landlords can
have taken little part in the movement. But even where land was held in common, a change was
sometimes effected. The tenants of Alburg (Aldborough) had 180 acres of common arable land ;
by general consent they changed it to pasture.”

The subject assumes a different aspect when the East Riding comes under consideration. The
area is less than half the West Riding, slightly greater than half the North Riding. Unfortunately,
the Inquisition returns only give the absolute acreage in half the cases examined.” During the
period 1,560 acres were inclosed—that is, almost two and a half times more land was converted from
arable to pasture in the East Riding than in the West. One hundred and thirty-seven people are
specifically enumerated as being evicted. The term ‘diversa messuagia’ complicates the number
of houses that were rendered desolate; 23 are mentioned, but probably 38 may be taken as
approximately correct. No individual landlord appears in such an unfavourable light as Henry
Pudsey, though the Church plays a more sinister part here than in the rest of Yorkshire. The
Provost of Beverley ejected 4 people having a house and using a plough.2! The Abbot of
St. Mary’s, York, inclosed 40 acres, devastated 2 houses, and drove 8 people from the village
of Hanging Grimston. The Prioress of Swine changed the arable land into pasture, pulled down
a house, and cast 6 people adrift.%? Indirectly, too, the Abbot of Meaux was answerable for
13 evictions at Ottringham.™ The noted Duke of Buckingham converted 100 acres from arable

7 Leadam, op. cit. 133. ™ Ibid 238. 8 Ibid. 235. ™ Thid. 240.
® W. Cunningham, Growth of Engl. Industry and Commerce, i, 530.
% 7. S. Leadam, op. cit. 241. 7 Ibid. 245.

™ Thid. 245 ; 976 acres of common field inclosed at Aldborough in 1808.

” Although sufficient evidence is given to afford Mr. Leadam a basis for his statistics.

® According to Mr. Leadam’s calculation, 194.

"1, S. Leadam, op. cit. 246. * Ibid. 248. ® Ibid. 249. “ Ibid. 252.

475

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

to pasture land at Burstwick, but no house was destroyed or plough put down.® po eh
example in this Riding was the eviction of 20 people by Thomas Fairfax at panne sn =a
tion with a view to sale was apparently the cause of the proceeding, for the entry closes with the
announcement that William Constable is now sole possessor.** At Atwick three husband-holdings
had been united and the population diminished by 17.8% John Wentworth in Little Cowden
changed 100 acres of arable land into pasture, thus throwing 24 people and four ploughs out of
employment.® =. :

It seems clear that in the North and West Ridings there is little evidence to support any
theory of a general conversion of arable land to pasture. In the East Riding the movement was
fairly general, the church lands leading the way. The explanation of this dissimilarity is due
rather to physical than historic causes. The East Riding had been from time immemorial down to
1349 the corn-growing district of the north; the first impetus towards the change from arable to
pasture was given by the Black Death, for in no other part did the pestilence claim so heavy a toll
of victims. In the early days of arable conversion, pasture took the place of tillage, not to satisfy
the greed of the capitalist, but from sheer inability to find labour to cultivate the land. Several
causes were, however, at work in North and West Yorkshire to prevent the inclosure question
assuming the threatening aspect that it did in some of the counties. From the settlement of the
Cistercians the county had always been a great wool-growing district ; in many parts the climate
was unfavourable to corn cultivation. Ryder describes the north-west as being inhabited by ‘a verie
symple plaine people yet lyving without any great labor or riches for the more upon their mylke or
sheep, their grayn they have growing is otes only.’ . . .* 7

Thus inclosure was followed by no great change in economic conditions, shepherds and hinds
were still required, and though their numbers might be lessened there was not that dislocation of
the labour market that ensued in those counties where inclosure was synonymous with the conver-
sion of arable into pasture. So much of the land in North and West Yorkshire was in the hands
of the church that the destruction of monasteries was probably a more effective economic factor
than the growth of inclosures. ‘The Casting down of inclosures of Comyns’® is certainly referred
to in the Pilgrimage of Grace; but it was not, as in the eastern and western revolts, the pivot on
which the rebellion turned.

The statute-book shows that the increase of pasture at the dissolution of monasteries was a
recognized danger. In 1535 it was enacted that the amount of tillage should remain or be restored
to what it was twenty years before on all monastic lands. But legislation was at that period, and
in remote regions, often inoperative. The reiterated evidence of witnesses in the commissions
dealing with Yorkshire lands bears eloquent testimony to the virtues of ecclesiastical landlords. In
1572 the people of Myton resisted the demand of the new landlord for the payment of rent ‘for
the banks and balks in the common fields.’ Witness after witness, some of them with memories
reaching back more than forty years, was brought forward to prove that no rent had ever been paid
to the monastery of St. Mary’s, York, for these lands, although they had always used them as
pasturage for their draught cattle. If the new claim were sustained ‘it would be to the utter
impoverishment of the said tenants, for that the lease, if it should pass, might keep the farmers and
tenants of Mytons cattle from coming to the water.’ ”

The eulogy of the author of The Fall of Religious Houses, who lived near Roche Abbey in
Yorkshire, may be too fulsome, but it was not entirely undeserved : ‘ Yea happy was that person
that was tenant to an abbey, for it was a rare thing to hear that any tenant was removed by taking
his farm over his head, nor he was not afraid of any re-entry for non-payment of rent, if necessity
drove him thereunto.’ *

Leland made his famous journey through England in 1536; incidentally he gives a great deal
of information about inclosures, but the manner in which he describes the country through which
he passes is too disjointed and disconnected to leave a clear impression.* Although the acreage of
the county was great, in the 16th century a considerable part was still forest land, useless for purpose
of inclosing. The forest of Galtres, which stretched 10 miles northwards from the very gates of
York, was so impenetrable that according to tradition a lantern was always hung on the tower of
All Hallows Church as a beacon towards which the travellers, when lost in the dense woodland,

*Tbid. 251. 1,200 acres were inclosed by Act in 1769. * Tbid. 251.

“ Lansd. MS. 119, 8, fol. 1 1gd.

* « Aske’s Narrative of the Pilgrimage of Grace,’ transcribed by Miss Mary Bateson in Engl. Hist. Reo.

Ya 330s ” Stat. 27 Hen. VIL, cap. 28.
* Exch, Spec. Com. York, 15 Eliz. no. 2571.

“ B.M. Cole MS. xii, 5, quoted in Cunningham, op. cit. i, 531.
“ See map of Leland’s Itinerary, printed in Appendix C; C. G. Slater, Engl. Peasantry and Encl. of
Common Fields, 318-19.

476

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

could aim. The royal forest of Knaresborough included much uncultivated and waste land.
There was much forest land, too, in the Dales, even as late as 1611 ; those who travelled through
Wensleydale Forest ‘did pay three farthings to some guide to guide them through the said forest,
by reason of the wildnes of the said forest, and for that the same was not inhabited in former
times, nor passable without danger.’°* The forest of Pickering, on the border-land between the
North and East Riding, was another formidable barrier to agricultural progress.” At the south of
the county, Hatfield Chase, ‘the greatest chase of red deer the Kings of England had, containing
in all limits above one hundred and eighty thousand acres,’ ** was a district resembling rather the
fens of Lincolnshire than the rest of Yorkshire. James Ryder, writing in 1588, draws attention
to the large extent of Yorkshire given up to the chase: ‘By reson of this general appetitt to
huntinge, the country is full of parkes and chasis greatly stored with red and fallowe deer with
conyes hares fesantes partridges & whatsoever beastes or fowles for gaine or use.’ ”

Both the Cleveland hills and the Yorkshire wolds were cultivated in the 17th century.
“ Hills called Yorkes wolds lying south from thes are not so great nor Baren, all champion bearing
good corne medowe and pasture especially good for shepe yet so scarce of wood & fuel of any
kinde to burne as their husbandmen use strawe both for fire and candelle.’? Deducting fen,
forest, marsh, chase, and mountains and common fields, the amount of land inclosed and in use for
agricultural purposes in Yorkshire in the 16th century was in comparison with the whole insignifi-
cant in amount, and except in the East Riding almost entirely pastoral in character.

Before the era of Parliamentary inclosures there seem to have been several methods of inclosing
common fields. Sometimes the landlord simply inclosed his various scattered plots without legal
proceeding ; at other times landlord and tenants came to an amicable arrangement without an
appeal to law, but more often the Court of Chancery or Exchequer were the final arbiters, and it
is from Exchequer depositions and commissions that a great deal of authentic information on the
subject can be gained.!

Settrington, for example, was the scene of many inclosure riots. A special commission was
appointed in 1581 to inquire into certain rights on Settrington, Norton, and Sutton Moors. One
of the witnesses, a yeoman, Matthew Welburn, deposed—

that he had known Norton Moor for fifty years and that one Simpkin being the Pinder of Norton
about thirty years ago went about to impound certain sheep going upon the common in controversy
and one John Humble of Settrington rescued the sheep and broke the pinder’s head, for the which he
was amerced in Norton Court at Ios. for the fray and the blood and 3s. 4d. for the said rescue
which one Nicholson, father-in-law to Humble, paid to this deponent being bailiff of Norton for
Mr. Folkington.?

Considerable light is thrown on the haphazard way in which land was inclosed in those days,
by a case in which Thomas Wray the queen’s farmer of the woods was plaintiff, and the tenants
of Ravensworth defendants. The dispute concerned two woods, Birk hagg and Washton Law hageg;
the former, according to one witness, had only been inclosed the day before ; according to another, it
had been inclosed for seven years. Washton Law hagg had been inclosed for forty years, and had
been kept in severalty by the late Lord Marquess of Northampton for fifteen years together, no
common rights being allowed. As soon as the estate lapsed to the owner, the queen gave the land
to Ralph Storer, who occupied it in severalty for three years; then Thomas Wray took it over. In
spite of the long prescriptive right and the fact that the people of Ravensworth had sufficient
common for their use in addition to the disputed woods, they refused to yield their claim. Nor
were they content with verbal remonstrance ; six men armed with piked staves three times pulled
down the fences Thomas Wray was erecting. The attacks were made by night and by day:
while the workmen were putting them up and could offer fight, and when they were absent.
This was done in spite of the fact that the assailants knew that already several years before Henry
Coates had been amerced the large sum of £6 for a similar offence.’ This is a typical case; a
great deal of inclosing seems to have been connived at for years, then apparently some new, even
slight, encroachment seems to have fanned the smouldering discontent into flames, and inclosures
that had become legalized by prescriptive right were attacked together with those that were new and

* F, Drake, Edoracum, 292. % Exch. Dep. Yorks. East. 7 Jas. I, no. 34.

” Forest of Pickering (North Riding Rec. Soc.).

** Stovin MS. printed in Yorks. Arch. Journ. vii, 198.

* Lansd. MS. 119, 8, fol. 119. 100 Thid. fol. 120.

* As Miss Leonard has pointed out, the awards and decrees are numerous, and many refer to Yorkshire.

But they are still unindexed, and therefore inaccessible ; ‘ The Enclosure of Common Fields,’ by Miss Leonard,
Hist. Soc. Trans. (New Ser.), xix, 110.

* Exch. Dep. Yorks. Trin. 22 Eliz. no. 9.
5 Ibid. Trin. 24 Eliz. no. 5.

477

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

na much more serious case of inclosing

; . r : ;
entirely illegal. But evidence was taken two years later bes Bcaubestigad a ean

against the wishes of the tenants having common rights. ae ,
again the scene of the alleged outrage ; James Hepplethwaite was the offender, and the inhabitants o
Norton were the accusers. The evidence was clear and pertinent ; one witness deposed that he had
known the townfields of Norton for fifty years and that the tenants had ‘ taken the profits thereof
by eating the grass thereof with their cattle’ from time immemorial. The highway from Norton lay
through a part of the common called the Outgang. One house had already, in infrinzement of their
rights, been built there, but Hepplethwaite had inclosed a piece of the highway within the last year
and erected the framework for a second house. He had also annexed one close in the field on the
south of Norton, three parcels of ground in the west field adjoining Norton Carr, and a part of
Norton Carr itself, where the tenants had always had common all the year, and pasturage when the
land was not sown with corn. For sixteen years after the dissolution of the monastery of Old
Malton, the bailiff of the Buckrose wapentake had held a court in Norton every three weeks, but
for the last three years Henry Hepplethwaite, presumably the brother of James, had usurped this
power, and had forced even the queen’s tenants to appear to answer for their misdemeanours at his
newly instituted court. The evidence of one witness gives an amusing example of the collusion
between the two relations. The deponent was fined 55. 4d. for some trivial offence, but was
allowed to work out the fine by leading stones for James Hepplethwaite.* ie

An interesting example of an unusual method of settling a disputed inclosure question is given
incidentally when the freeholders of Eccleshall Manor sued Sir Nicholas Strelley concerning their
common rights on Nether Moor, Hartle Moor, and Rawhill. Sir Nicholas had refused to fence and
inclose, but fined the freeholders if their cattle strayed on to the common, which was so near
their houses that it was impossible to prevent the trespass. | They urged also that until eighteen
years ago they had had pasturage rights on the said common. Some forty years before Sir Nicholas
had commanded his tenants to ditch and inclose two parcels of ground called Rawhill and Hartle-
grove ; the freeholders had appealed to the Earl of Shrewsbury to protect them. His award was
that they should pay Sir Nicholas 8s. a year, and in case of failure he could inclose at
once.°

James Ryder’s view of the inclosure question is interesting as coming from a contemporary,
though his judgement is warped, for the chief object of his letter, written in 1588 to Lord Burghley,
is apparently to prove the superiority of the West Riding over the rest of Yorkshire, and the
imbecility and depravity of the citizens of York. Writing of the land round Halifax, he
says :—

The people have great lybertie to enclose and buyld upon the wastes about their towen by reson
they do for the more parte appertaine to the Crowen, and all our lawes and statutes of Inglande favor
Inclosures as a comon comoditie, and condemne unimployed soyles as a cancar to the comonwelth. In
other partes of the countrie to maintayne the poorer sort In their Idellness, they hold this use, if any
man pocessed of large wasts wolde Improve thoughe not so much as by lawe he may forthwith the
Richer sort (who indeed suck out the swet of thes comons from the poore) will send In all the poor
that inhabyt ner to make outcries to the magistrate that they are undon and thes people for the more
parte have not anythinge to put out of their doores that can lyve upon thes wastes, so are the symple
made Instruments to keepe themselves under and unable to lyve of themselves so that this dyfferent
effect is most woorthie the notinge, No parte of the countrie yealdeth so many rich men as the most
barren, no parte so many poor as the most fertile.®

The view that the possession of common rights tended to pauperize was not popular. As
early as 1549 the commons of York put in a petition to the Lord Mayor’s Court, ‘that there be
no newe inclosers mayd nor had abowte this citie from Michelmes to the Lady day but that the
comon may have their comon and areyse in the same from Michelmes to the lady day in Lent as
they have had here before and ought of right to have.” But James Ryder gives an amusing
account of the effects of the possession of these rights on the character of the people of York.

For their artificers they ar hardly to be mached In being so many, so unskillfull and so dear,
many of thes keepe, some one mylke kow som two, which In somer lyve upon their comons adjoyn-
inge to the cytty and in wynter upon hay at the tyme of year brought to their dooresto be solde. In
resonable sort this cowe eatith awaie their Industrie by whose defect unskillfullness Increasse for this
which the prentise bringe In the provition of many howsholdes whose maisters card and drynk for
the more parte of the daie, greate prehemynence appertaine to thes mylktearing bists for by their
costom In comyng home from their pasture they use to take the wall of such as they meet yea of my
Ld: maior hymself if the sword bearer be not all the stouter man so that from hence this northern
adage is rysen, take hym for a tall man that dare take the wall of a prentise in london of a skoller in
Oxforde or of a cowe in Yorke.®

‘ Exch. Dep. Yorks. Mich. 26 & 27 Eliz. no. 32.
* Ibid. Mich. 27 & 28 Eliz. no. 29. * Lansd. MS. 119, 8, fol. 119
"York Munic. Rec. xix, fol. 86, Sept. 1549. * Lansd. MS. 119, 8, fol. 121.

478

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

In districts where crown lands predominated the process of inclosure could be carried on with
less difficulty. This is clear from a case tried in 1604, but retrospective in character. The evidence
brought before the commission proves that about the year 1564 there was great inclosing activity in
the neighbourhood of Bowes, and that the queen’s tenants were anxious to pay an increased rent
in order to gain the privilege. The same story is told of Arkylgarth, Helwith, Halgate and
Keckwith, all places within the district once called the New Forest, one of the Crown possessions.°

Recent research has proved that the 17th century did not mark a break in the continuity of
the inclosure movement.’® As far as Yorkshire is concerned, complaints of the inclosure of
common lands are frequent in the Stuart period. One of the earliest examples of resistance to
inclosing in the reign of James I occurred at Crakehall. The land was held by an absentee minor,
Miles Metcalfe. ‘The inhabitants claimed rights over the ground of Vyvers, which had never been
held in severalty until the parents of Miles Metcalfe seized the land. In order to draw attention
to their rights the people knocked down the fences and took forcible possession of the ground."
The Quarter Session Records for the North Riding are extant from the beginning of the 17th
century and furnish interesting information. The first entry occurs on 10 July 1606.

On the imformation of Ch. Layton Esq. Lo : of the Mannour of Hneton,™ that there are diverse
pasture groundes within the said mannour growen with woodes and underwoodes which he is deter-
mined to preserve and cherish according to lawe, wherein he hath moved the tenaunts, who will
not consent thereto, viz. for the enclosing of a iiii™ part of the said groundes, therefore, that at the
suit of the said Ch: Layton in open sessions Sir Coniers Darcy and Sir Henry Jenkins, two of his
Mats, etc, who areno way of kindredd, allyance, counsell or fee of or to the said Ch: Layton,
being thereto appointed by the more number of the Justices of the North Riding within which the
said grounde lyeth, shall have full power to call before them (upon such paynes and penaltyes as
they shall appoint) such xii of the said commoners and inhabit night to the said woodes, and upon
their apparance to proceed for the preservation and springing of the said woodes, and the dividing
and inclosing of the fourth of the said ground, as by law.”

The Privy Council appointed a commission in 1607 to inquire into the question of inclosures
in the Midlands, and an entry in the Sessions Roll of 8 July of the same year seems to point to
a similar order having been sent into Yorkshire. A considerable number of notices appear which
prove that some depopulation had taken place, though in scattered places and at some distance of
time. ‘Moreover that the townes undernamed are inclosed and pitifully depopulated, viz., Maunby
by Will Midleton about xvi yeares since, Gristhwaite by the late Erle of Northumberland about
xxx'i yeares since, North Kilvington by Mr. Mennell, the rest by whom ignoramus, Salton ab Sawton
in Rydale by the late lord Eure almost xxiiii years sithence.’* But there is no room for doubt as to
which side the justices favoured ; a wall of 200 roods had been built by the Earl of Exeter to
inclose part of Newsham Moor ; it was pulled down during the night. ‘The people of the neigh-
bouring villages refused to give any information to lead to the detection of the culprits, so the
justices ordered them to pay such sum of money as would rebuild the wall.'* Great distress was
sometimes occasioned by cattle straying while being driven off common lands.

The cattle of the inhabitants of Sutton used to depasture on the common moor belonging to the
village of Farlington quietly and peaceably until Thomas Moyser in the minority of Sir Robert Staple-
ton did somewhat trouble and interrupt their quiet going there by causing them to be driven out of
the said moors and wastes of Farlington over the said river into the forest.’

One of the most systematic and well-organized attacks on inclosures during the period took
place at Anlaby in the neighbourhood of Hull. The case was tried in the court of Exchequer,
William Hayward being plaintiff, various inhabitants of Anlaby defendants. Southholme Close,
part of Southholme Common, was said to have been inclosed for thirty years; but the landlord,
William Hayward, seems to have roused popular indignation by depriving the cottagers of their
housegaits on the common. One of the interrogatories administered on behalf of the defendants
suggests that the two bylawmen, though elected by the villagers themselves, had in defiance of their
oath of office acted for some years in collusion with the complainant.

“Whether has the ordering or overseeing of the ancient custom and usage of common in the
grounds been of late time much neglected by the Bylawmen and what was the occasion of the said
neglect. Whether was it for that the Bylawmen were kinsmen to the owners of the said inclosures
or for what other cause or respect was it that the same was so neglected and not casten down, speak
the truth thereof by the oath you have taken.’

9 Exch. Dep. Yorks. Mich. 2 Jas. I, no. 33. © Miss Leonard, op. cit. 102.
4 Exch. Dep. Yorks. Hil. 3 Jas. I, no. 17. ua Kneeton (?).

™ 35 Hen. VIII, Quarter Sessions Rec. (North Riding Rec. Soc.), i, 42, 43.

8 Tbid. 78. 4 Ibid. 170, 6 Oct. 1609 ; 210, 8 Jan. 1610.

* Exch. Dep. Yorks. East. 5 Jas. I, no. 12.
479

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

But before the matter came to a climax, the inhabitants, probably in view of future develop-
ments, deposed the bylawmen, elected possibly under coercion, and chose in their place Christopher
Keld and Thomas Brocklebank. Having secured these important allies, for they were sworn to see
that each had his just rights and that no one was oppressed, Robert Legeard, the self-clected
ringleader of the malcontents, called a meeting at his own house to arrange the plan of campaign.

_ All those present were required to sign an undertaking to act in concert. No coercion was used
to the solitary dissentient ; the witness emphatically declared that Robert Legeard simply said to
him, ‘Go thy way,’ and he went. The meeting was then unanimous and it was decided that the
inclosure in question must go. The task was accomplished with surprising ease. Christopher
Keld, Edward Turlton, and William Southwick, armed with sticks, went to Southolme Close,
where two workmen were dyking. At the end of a brief conversation they filled up the dyke and
left their work. Some men were engaged in hedging and fencing the same piece of ground.
Apparently they did not acquiesce quite so readily, but Christopher Keld laying down his ‘ walking
rod’ on the dyke-side said, ‘ You dyke upon my common and I will sue you for it, for I have nothing
to do with Mr. Hawoord.’ The men replied, ‘God shield rather than we be sued, we will cast it
down again,’ so the fences and hedges were pulled up. Hayward was driven to the expensive
method of protecting himself by law, whether he gained his case is not recorded."

A curiously perplexing case, which shows the difficulties attending informal arrangements,
came into the Exchequer Court in 1619.

The landowner, Francis Salkeld, and his undertenants, the freeholders of Bowes and their
farmers, and the king’s tenants decided among themselves that 500 acres of the best land should
be inclosed. According to the evidence the inclosure was ‘ for the general good without exception
of any.’ The cost of fencing was defrayed by each paying according to the quantity of his rent
and lands and having stint of cattle in the same ratio. Francis Salkeld, Arthur Sheppard, Charles
Kipling and their tenants paid {5 each, John Hamby and John Bousfield £3 6s. 8d. At a general
meeting held at ‘the gaite’ of the said pasture as soon as the fencing was complete, it was decided that
those who had paid the fencing fees should have for xxs. nine beasts’ gates therein every year. For
the first year the defendants put in ‘their stint of cattle and quietly enjoyed the same.’ The second
year Robert Peacock, Thomas Leadman, William Antony, and George Alderson, with a mob of
people armed with pitchforks, staves, and daggers drove the cattle away. A compromise was
arranged from which Francis Salkeld and his undertenants were expressly excluded. Encouraged
by their success, Peacock and his followers began to treat the inclosed land as freehold. They
granted rights of pasturage to those who lived near the common, and sold a piece of land on which
a house was built. As the building was in the neighbourhood of Salkeld’s tenements he was com-
pletely cut off from all access even to the uninclosed common. His case was undoubtedly strong ;
by legal inclosure used in an illegal way he had lost his right of approach to that part of the
common for the inclosing of which he had paid heavily ; by a second series of illegal inclosures he
was debarred from access to that part of the common that still remained open. The defendants
had not only defied the law by acting without the consent of the complainants or warrant of His
Majesty, but had infringed a special order ‘set down under the hand of Sir Talbott Bowes, deputy
steward under the late Lord Scrope, that no inclosure should be taken up after in Bowes Moor or
Common without a consent general of the King’s tenants and the freeholders and their farmers
there.” The evidence is complicated and perplexing, but two facts emerge : that the collective com-
mon-right holders could be as tyrannical as the individual landlord, and that parliamentary inclosure
presented less opportunities of a miscarriage of justice than the earlier haphazard methods by agree-
ment, collusion, warrant, or promiscuous annexation.”

In 1632 the York aldermen and the noted Sir Arthur Ingram had a hot dispute over a
question of inclosing, but

after much treatye and debating of the matter with Sir Arthur Ingram Knight agreed with him that
he shall and will in satisfaction of the right that this city clames to have in the common of Huntington
which he hath now lately inclosed made an estaite in fee to feoffees to the use of the maior and
comonalty of a full fourth part of the soyle which he hath soe inclosed to be sett out in severalty from
the other three parts which is wellingly accepted of And the sayd Mr. Alderman Allanson and Mr.
Pepper are now desired that they will gett a conveyance drawne and sealed by the said Sir Arthur
accordingly.®

; The Session Rolls for the first half of the 17th century yield evidence of a systematic attempt
to inclose without legal right. On 18 April 1637 an Alne!® yeoman was brought before the court
for stopping up the highway between Thirsk and York in his ‘alottments laitely improved in the

** Exch. Dep. Yorks. Mich. 12 Jas. I, no. 32. " Tbid. Hil. 1 I, no. 1
“York Munic. Rec. xxxv, fol. 1694, 4 June 1632. Se ae
** Six hundred acres were inclosed by Act of Parliament at Alne in 1807.

480

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

forest of Galtres with stoopes, narrow gates and ditches, being an usuall high waie for cartes and
carriages,’ time the memory of man not being to the contrary.” Twelve similar presentments occur
within a short time.” In 1640 Howgrave was so depopulated by the rapid inclosing that no one
remained to act as constable.” The following year, in the neighbourhood of Rillington, the new
landlord, Philip Wheath, convinced that inclosure would increase the value of the soil, approached
the freeholders with a scheme on a large scale for fencing ‘arable land, meadow ground, common
moors and wastes.’ After many meetings and long debates he induced his neighbours to further
his schemes. The evil effects of the prolongation of the common-field system are summed up in
the description of the condition of the place.

Considering that the tillage of the said town and lordship was very much decayed and like to be
quite destroyed for want of enclosure, and also considering that the multiplicity of the stock goods and
cattle of all sorts and kinds kept upon the grounds and wastes of the said manor were daily increased,
whereby the said grounds were eaten up, trodden under foot and consumed, that many of them were
starved and diverse of the said free holders thereby totally disabled to manure and till their grounds.”

But it seems necessary to judge each case of inclosing on its own merits, for the reverse side
of the picture is forcibly represented in the Sutton case.

From these depositions valuable contemporary views of the anti-inclosers can be gained.
The village of Sutton, in the forest of Galtres,™ consisted of eighty-eight cottages, with pasture
and turbary rights extending over 1,500 acres of common. Some of these cottagers were small
farmers with a little land; others had only houses, garths, and common rights. It was suggested
that the common, which consisted of heath, ling, and barren ground, should be subdivided, and
inclosed into eighty-eight small allotments. The witnesses were unanimously adverse to such a
change. One argued that the inclosed land would not be worth 3s. 4d. an acre. He clinched his
argument by a concrete local example. A district of about 400 acres, called Bohemia, adjoining
upon the best part of Sutton Common, of similar soil, was improved and subdivided. It still lets
at 3s. 4d. an acre. ‘The land was ploughed and riven up, ‘and sown with corn, but is so dear
even at the low rental that if the landlord had not been at the sole charge of enclosing the same,
the tenants had been undone with the charge thereof.” He added: ‘Some of the tenants are
beggared by it and other some have left it and others fit to leave it.’ Another example of
depreciation on account of inclosure is given. ‘The tithes of ‘wool and lamb’ yielded when the
land was in common at Huby, a neighbouring village, £12 a year, but since the subdivision they
are not worth £3 6s. 8d. Another point urged against inclosure is that many of the inhabitants of
Sutton ‘want ability and means’ to fence the land already in their possession. Another witness
observed that the common served a useful purpose in supplying turf in a neighbourhood where it
was scarce and dear. It served, too, as a pasturage for 3,000 sheep, and doubts were expressed
whether tillage could be continued unless sheep were kept. Besides, more money was made by
sheep than by land, when soil was so poor. Lack of initiative was not at the root of the resistance
to the change ; for many witnesses declared that endless experiments had been made in ‘ ploughing,
burning and corning’ several parcels of land near the common, but all had been unsuccessful.
Several of the farmers were tenants for the life of Mr. Kirk. This uncertainty of tenure, added to
‘the barronesse of the earth,’ rendered the innovation impracticable. ‘The high waies on horseback
and on foote and for carte and carriage’ from the North Riding to York lay across the common.
The onerous duty of keeping up the road would devolve on the inclosers; this, one witness says,
‘would tyre the most of them.’

The whole evidence may be tersely summed up in the words of the last deponent : ‘ He
verily believeth that the subdivision of the fifteen hundred acres of common will be an advantage to
thre or four of the richest of the inhabitants but will be prejudicial to the rest and utter undoing of
the poorest sort.’

No part of Yorkshire has a more stormy economic history than the tract of country called
Hatfield Chase, which, by the ingenuity of Dutch engineers, had been reclaimed from waste in the
early years of Charles I. An interesting case in this district was dealt with by special commission
in 1670. It is clear from the evidence that the right of inclosing land where Crown rights
prevailed, without legal proceedings or agreement, was an accepted theory, although the only
excuse urged was ‘that other towns did the same.’ About 80 acres of the King’s Moor had been
inclosed by Mr. Belton, and was kept inclosed for four or five years ‘during Oliver Cromwell’s
time.’ But the towns of Snaith and Cowick* obliged him to lay it down again as common. A

” Quarter Sessions Rec. (North Riding Rec. Soc.), iv, 71, 72. "1 Ibid. 73, 80. ® Thid. 176.

* Chan. Enr. Dec. R. 598, no. 6, referred to by Miss Leonard, op, cit. 111.

* Three thousand acres were inclosed in 1748 by Act of Parliament.

* Exch. Dep. Yorks. Trin. 1656, no. 5.

** One thousand one hundred and sixty acres were inclosed at Snaith and Cowick in 1773 by Act of
Parliament.

3 481 61

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

second attempt was made by Mr. Thomas Gaythorne to inclose 200 acres of the same moor.
This time the people, having common rights, refused to submit. One witness remarks that no
objection would have been taken to Mr. Gaythorne’s proceedings if he had been contented with
the king’s moors, but he had gone on inclosing more ground. Incidentally a glimpse is afforded of
the unbusinesslike methods used in the management of the royal domain. ‘Sir Cornelius Ver-
muyden, kt., paid several inhabitants £3 10s, an acre for a composition for cutting through
Rocliff Moors, then their inheritance, the King’s Moors lying next thereunto, which said sum might
have been paid for the King’s Moor for such licence if the same had been demanded for cutting a
river through the same.’ ””

A few scattered facts with regard to Yorkshire inclosures can be gleaned from Celia Fiennes,
who wrote in the late 17th century. She alludes to the inclosures between Darlington and Rich-
mond, the common near Boroughbridge, and the open common between Knaresborough and Leeds.
But the endless inclosures in the neighbourhood of Elland seem to have struck her, as they had done
James Ryder a century earlier, as the distinguishing feature of the district.”

It is interesting to note that Daniel Defoe also, almost a century later, particularly remarked
that in the neighbourhood of Halifax to Blackstone Edge the land was divided into small inclosures
from two acres to six or seven each. Every three or four pieces of land had a house and a tenter,
and on every tenter was a piece of cloth, kersey or shalloon.” These agricultural weavers
alluded to by Defoe, who eked out their scanty earnings by cultivating a few acres of ground,
formed an important section in the industrial and economic life of the West Riding. They
survived into the 19th century, long after their common rights had passed away. In fact
the class is not yet extinct, though the 2oth-century representative has no strip of common
land to occupy his energies. The allotment or poultry rearing takes the place of the subsistence
farming of his 18th-century prototype. Many consider that if inclosing had been carried on
with a nicer regard for the rights of the small holder of common land, this class might have
continued. But they were crushed out of existence rather by the better organization of industry
than by the systematic encroachments of their powerful neighbours. The sturdy independence,
that in theory is so much admired, did not lend itself to obey the bell of the factory. The life of
constant change from weaving to agriculture, from agriculture to bartering yarn or cloth, with
exciting interludes of rabbit-coursing and ratting, fostered their hatred of monotony. Men of this
type, ready to turn their hand to anything, were England’s most valuable assets in ensuring the
expansion of the colonies, but as component parts of a highly specialized industrial development they
were useless. Their elimination was a necessity of industrial efficiency, rather than a result of the
policy of inclosing.

An interesting experiment, on entirely novel lines, was tried in Yorkshire in the reign
of Anne, and carried out successfully. A local Bill was obtained, by which it became lawful
for any of the inhabitants of any parish in the West Riding of the county, where chapels-
of-ease had been built but had no endowment, to inclose tracts of the wastes or commons in the
neighbourhood for the benefit of the curate.

There were several limitations. The consent of the lord or lords of the manors and three-quarters
of the freeholders must be obtained. ‘The area had not to exceed 60 acres or one-sixth of the
common land, and it had to be vested in trustees. Only those ministers whose stipends were under
£40 a year could avail themselves of it. Residence and performance of the divine office were
obligatory. According tothe report the results were very satisfactory.*

Under the heading ‘ Effect on the poor of the inclosures which took place during the first forty
ycars of his present Majesty,’ the report of 1808 gives many typical cases :—

Ackworth.*' The parish belonged to near 100 owners ; nearly the whole of whom have come to
the parish since the inclosure or changed the quantity of their land.

Kirkburn. The inclosure has proved of singular advantage to great landowners and their tenants ;
but the labourer who, previous to the inclosure, had his cowgate and from thence derived
considerable nourishment to his small family, was deprived of this aid by inability to inclose,
therefore was under the necessity of selling his tenements to his richer neighbour, and deprived
his family of a comfortable refuge.

Ebberston have lost their cows.

Tipthorpe [Tibthorpe] have lost their cows and sold their tenements.”

7” P.R.O, Exch. Spec. Com. York, no. 6566, 17 Oct. 1670.

°C, Fiennes, Through England on a Side-saddle, 183-6.

® D. Defoe, Tour through Great Britain, (1727), ill (1), 99.

°° General Inclosure Report, 131-4. Bd. of Agric. Sir John Sinclair, 1808; Loc. and Personal Act,
12 Anne, cap. 4.

5\ The common fields at Ackworth were inclosed in 1772 by Act of Parliament ; acreage not given.

5? General Inclosures, op. cit. 1808, p. 152. 3,000 acres were inclosed at Tibthorpe by Act of
Parliament in 1794.

482

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

With the 18th century the period of Parliamentary inclosures is reached, and for the latter part
of the century invaluable information can be obtained from Arthur Young. ‘The inclosures on the
hill facing Conisbrough excited his admiration, the waste land round Beverley his scorn.** Cleveland
he extolled, ‘the inclosures adding prodigiously to the view. In front appears a most picturesque hill,
intersected with green hedges, and cultivated to the very top. One of the most pleasing objects in
the world.’*4 Both from a picturesque and a pastoral point of view he found the Tees valley
unsurpassed. The extensive moorlands that stretched on both sides of the river had formerly ‘ used
not to yield a farthing an acre,’ * but by skilful management 7s. 6d. was now raised. Greenfield in
the parish of Arncliffe, an area of 2,080 acres, was so increasing in value by inclosure and improvement
that it would soon yield £1,200 a year instead of the former rental of £60. He extolled highly
the energy of Mr. Scroope of Danby, who, by inclosing moorland in the Wensleydale district, had
not only added to the cultivated land of England, but made 170 per cent. on his outlay.** Cases of
this kind, where no common rights were exploited, where the energy and enterprise of the landlord
gave the impetus, and his capital was risked to effect the improvement, are by no means uncommon
in Yorkshire.

But an inclosure of an entirely different kind took place in the vale of Pickering. Canon
Taylor has familiarized everyone with the economic story of the parish. In the time of Edward the
Confessor the inclosures were less than 400 acres, about 700 acres were tilled in open field, about
20,000 acres remained moorland pasture. When the Domesday Survey was made the tillage had
increased to 1,200 acres, there were twenty villeins having six ploughs among them, the population
reached 100, little more than one man toa square mile. ‘To-day the parish contains 31,271 acres
and has 4,454 inhabitants, and all the land is inclosed. But towards the end of the 18th century a
complete upheaval of the whole parish took place. Writing in 1788 Marshall says: ‘In my own
remembrance, more than half the Vale of Pickering lay open ; now scarcely an open field or an
undivided common remains.’ ” ‘The history of its inclosure is given at length by Marshall, and is at
once so extraordinary and presents such a vivid picture of the happy-go-lucky ways of early inclosing
Acts that it furnishes the classic example of inclosure literature. The interest lies in the fact that one
small town should furnish typical examples of each of the various methods of inclosure. In 1773 %
a bill was passed which enabled a three-fourths majority of the occupiers of common arable lands with
the consent of the owner and tithe owner to adopt any scheme of husbandry that might tend to
increase the productive power of the land. Hunmanby in the East Riding * is the only town in
England that took advantage of the Act. The fact that Isaac Leatham, a progressive agriculturist,
lived there was probably the reason of this activity.

Writing in 1794, he gives a startling picture of the results of not inclosing. Hunmanby
consisted chiefly of open fields and commons. ‘The arable land was exhausted by injudicious culture,
until it yielded hardly sufficient corn to supply the horses employed in cultivating the soil: ‘ poverty
was an inmate of every dwelling.’ *

An excellent account of the state of a small Yorkshire town before its common fields were
inclosed in 1801 is given by an anonymous writer who in 1843 obtained the details from one of the
oldest inhabitants.*1 The statistics compiled by Dr. Slater of the inclosure by Act of Parliament of
land consisting either partly or wholly of arable common fields emphasizes the fact that the funda-
mental difference between the Ridings had not disappeared as time progressed. ‘The period covered
extends from 1729 to 1901. During those years 40°1 of the area of the entire East Riding was
dealt with by bills inclosing common fields ; in the West Riding innumerable bills were passed but
only 11°6 of the area was affected ; while in the North Riding an entirely insignificant portion, 6°3,
was concerned. Broadly speaking, down to the third decade of the 18th century in the East Riding
only three-fifths of the land had been inclosed, while in the West Riding nine-tenths was already in
private ownership, and in the North Riding nineteen-twentieths,“” The East Riding stands fifth,
the West Riding twentieth, the North Riding twenty-fifth in a list of the thirty-eight counties of
England arranged in a descending scale according to acreage inclosed by Parliament.

In 1769 Daniel Defoe summed up the lack of arable land in the West Riding in a telling
phrase: ‘as for corn they scarce sow enough to feed their poultry.’ * Little more than half a century

3 A. Young, Northern Tour, i, 147. * Tbid. ii, 94.

* Tbid. 189. % Ibid. 196.

7 W. Marshall, Rural Economy of Yorkshire, i, 49-57.

*° Stat. 13 Geo. III, cap. 81.

® G, Slater, op. cit. 88-90.

I, Leatham, General View of the Agriculture of the East Riding of Yorkshire, 39-52. Hunmanby and
Fordon were inclosed by Act of Parliament in 1800.

“EL W. B. An Account of Hornsea in Holderness (1843), 52-64.

* D. Defoe, op. cit. iii (1), 145.

483

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

later William Cobbett, in urging the folly of fighting against nature by trying to grow corn In the
North Riding, writes :—

What was my surprise at finding, which I verily believe to be the fact, that there is not as much
corn grown in the North Riding of Yorkshire, which begins at Ripon, and in the whole
county of Durham as is grown in the Isle of Wight alone . . . all along the road from Leeds
to Durham I saw hardly any wheat at all or any wheat stubble, the chief crops being oats and
beans mixed with peas... They are not agricultural counties; they are not counties for the
producing of bread, but they are counties made for the express purpose of producing meat ; in
which respect they excell the southern counties in a degree beyond all comparison.“

In the year 1769 alone 25,151 acres of common land were inclosed in the East Riding ; but the
war period, as Arthur Young has pointed out, was coincident with great inclosing activity in the
district. ‘For the inclosures and turnpikes were carried on with great spirit during the later years
of the war, notwithstanding the great scarcity of hands so often talked of.’ *° The last inclosure did
not take place until 1901, when 321 acres wereinclosed at Skipwith. The largest inclosure by one
Act took place in the Kirkburton and Almondbury district in 1828, when 18,000 acres of common
pasture were inclosed. The West Riding furnishes another example of wholesale inclosure at
Ecclesfield : 14,000 acres were inclosed by one Act ; but 6,000 acres is the highest mark touched in
the East Riding, and 6,840 acres in the North.

The industrial revolution of the early 1gth century had naturally an enormous effect on
the economic history of Yorkshire, whose most important interests were bound up with mining and
manufacturing rather than agriculture. The substitution of machinery for hand labour necessitated
a change from the domestic to the factory system; this led to the concentration of the population
in the towns, a movement somewhat accelerated by the rapid growth of parliamentary inclosures.

The abolition of child labour, too, was a factor of more importance in Yorkshire than in any
other county.” Daniel Defoe, writing in 1769 of the neighbourhood of Halifax, had commented
on the early age at which children were put to work. ‘I never saw anything above four years
old but its hands were sufficient for its own support.’ 8 It is, however, interesting to note that the
swing of the pendulum is at present in the direction of reverting to many customs abolished in the
early Victorian period, more on account ofthe abuse of the system than of its inherent viciousness.
The teaching of handicrafts in schools is only a modern adaptation of the rough-and-ready training
children obtained under the worst possible sanitary conditions, and by means of incredibly cruel
treatment, in the days of pre-factory legislation.

The general use of the telephone and of electricity both as a motive and lighting power has
rendered the return of the factory to the country districts feasible. If this movement could be
accelerated by the cheapening of the transport of goods, some of the worst results of the industrial
revolution would be removed. By means of the telephone, the owner of a factory in the small
village of Greetland, in a remote district of West Yorkshire, is for all practical purposes as much
on the spot as the man in Bradford Exchange. The owner of a steel factory on a small stream in
a distant part of South-east Yorkshire has an efficient agent which supplies him with generating
and illuminating power as well as if he were in the immediate neighbourhood of a big town. The
self-sufficiency of a modern factory supplied with telephones and electricity renders the nearness of
a market of no importance, the presence of gas-works disadvantageous. ‘The evils of the old truck
system cannot be exaggerated ; its modern prototype, meals provided by the firm, has much in its
favour. ‘Throughout the length and breadth of Yorkshire the scheme is gaining ground. In York,
the most conservative of cities, in Wakefield, in Hull, even in the small village of Marsden, high
up the Colne Valley, men are being provided with food at cost price; in many of the Yorkshire
factories a breakfast costs only 14d. or 2d., a dinner 44d. The advantage of being saved a tiring
walk after hard physical toil is self-evident, and so long as the men get better food in more sanitary
steteunidinjss—for the dining-rooms are usually presented to the workpeople by the employers—the
sentimentalist s jeremiad over the decay of home life may be disregarded. In those towns where the
women are joint wage-earners the advantages outweigh the disadvantages to even a greater degree.
The growth of small holdings and allotments is only a modern adaptation of the old union of
agricultural and industrial employments. An entirely novel feature of modern economic develop-
ment, the pension scheme, has been taken up in many Yorkshire works and factories.

Messrs. Walker and Hall, Sheffield, have adopted a plan by which any worker who has been
in their employment for twenty-one years, and has been either incapacitated or has attained the age
of sixty-five years, receives a pension. As would be expected, the co-operative firm of William

4 : .
“W. Cobbett, Rural Rides, ii, 362, 363. * A. Young, op. cit, i, 178.

“G. Slater, op. cit. 307-13.

“ W. Cunningham, op. cit. 777 ; Halifax Guardian
5 Os. City 3 1 October 1835.
“ D. Defoe, Tour through Great Britain, iii, 146. ee -

484

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

Thomson and Sons, Huddersfield, the founder of which earned Ruskin’s sympathy and admiration,
have an assurance and pension scheme. Messrs. J. I. and J. Taylor, of Batley, have instituted
many plans for breaking down the rigid lines of demarcation between employers and employees.
The parental supervision exercised by the firm of Rowntree has made the old cathedral city the
Mecca of the employer of labour with philanthropic tendencies. There is hardly a scheme of
industrial betterment with which their name is not more or less intimately connected.

Asurprising amount of unchronicled work on quasi-philanthropic lines is being done, especially
in the large Yorkshire towns, which escapes attention from the dislike of the promoters to any form
of advertisement. Work of this kind, where individual enthusiasm is a main factor, is easier for small
firms, with the management in the hands of the founder of the business or his immediate
descendants, than for large firms under directorate control. By the exertions of Lady Bell,
Middlesbrough has a winter garden for its workpeople; but the firm of Bell Brothers, in spite of the
number of its employees, belongs to the class of family as opposed to trust businesses. The club
house in connexion with the firm of Sir Bernard Samuelson and Co. was the last enterprise into
which that Cleveland pioneer ironmaster threw his inexhaustible energies. It is, however, inevitable
that the gradual substitution of businesses managed on trust lines, of absentee directors working with
capital gathered from ignorant investors living at a distance, eager only for high percentages for their
capital, should lay a dead hand on all attempts to foster a strong feeling of good-fellowship between
masters and men. The firm with a staff of five thousand men, all of them staunch members of
unions, can hardly feel answerable for the individual well-being of such a heterogeneous mass. "The
ever-encroaching factory legislation, too, tends to shift responsibility from the master to the
inspector.

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801 To 1901
Introductory Notes
AREA

The county taken in this table is that existing subsequently to 7 & 8 Vict., chap. 61 (1844).
By this Act detached parts of counties, which had already for parliamentary purposes been amalga-
mated with the county by which they were surrounded or with which the detached part had the
longest common boundary (2 & 3 Will. IV, chap. 64—1832), were annexed to the same county for
all purposes ; some exceptions were, however, permitted.

By the same Act (7 & 8 Vict., chap. 61) the detached parts of counties, transferred to other
counties, were also annexed to the hundred, ward, wapentake, &c. by which they were wholly or
mostly surrounded, or to which they next adjoined, in the counties to which they were transferred.
The hundreds, &c., in this table are also given as existing subsequently to this Act.

As is well known, the famous statute of Queen Elizabeth for the relief of the poor took the then-
existing ecclesiastical parish as the unit for Poor Law relief. ‘This continued for some centuries
‘with but few modifications; notably by an Act passed in the thirteenth year of the reign of
Charles II which permitted townships and villages to maintain their own poor. ‘This permission
was necessary owing to the large size of some of the parishes, especially in the north of England.

In 1801 the parish for rating purposes (now known as the civil parish, i.e. ‘an area for which
a separate poor rate is or can be made, or for which a separate overseer is or can be appointed ’)
was in most cases co-extensive with the ecclesiastical parish of the same name; but already there
were numerous townships and villages rated separately for the relief of the poor, and also there were
many places scattered up and down the country, known as extra-parochial places, which paid no rates
at all. Further, many parishes had detached parts entirely surrounded by another parish or parishes.

Parliament first turned its attention to extra-parochial places, and by an Act(20 Vict., chap. 1g—
1857) it was laid down (a) that all extra-parochial places entered separately in the 1851 census returns
are to be deemed civil parishes, (4) that in any other place being, or being reputed to be, extra-parochial,
overseers of the poor may be appointed, and (c) that where, however, owners and occupiers of two-
thirds in value of the land of any such place desire its annexation to an adjoining civil parish, it may
be so added with the consent of the said parish. This Act was not found entirely to fulfil its object, so
by a further Act (31 & 32 Vict., chap. 122—1868) it was enacted that every such place remaining on
25 December, 1868, should be added to the parish with which it had the longest common boundary.

The next thing to be dealt with was the question of detached parts of vil parishes, which was
done by the Divided Parishes Acts of 1876, 1879, and 1882. The last, which amended the one of
1876, provides that every detached part of an entirely batre-tmetronolifan parish which is entirely
surrounded by another parish becomes transferred to this latter for civil purposes, or if the population
exceeds 300 persons it may be made a separate parish. “These Acts also gave power to add detached
parts surrounded by more than one parish to one or more of the surrounding parishes, and also to

485

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

amalgamate entire parishes with one or more parishes. Under the 1879 Act it was not necessary
for the areadealt with to be entirely detached. These Acts also declared that every part added to
a parish in another county becomes part of that county. 7 ;

Then came the Local Government Act, 1888, which permits the alteration of civil parish boun-
daries and the amalgamation of civil parishes by Local Government Board orders. It also created the
administrative counties. The Local Government Act of 1894 enacts that where a civil parish is partly
in a rural district and partly in an urban district each part shall become a separate civil parish ; and
also that where a civil parish is situated in more than one urban district each part shall become a
separate civil parish, unless the county council otherwise direct. Meanwhile, the ecclesiastical parishes
had been altered and new ones created under entirely different Acts, which cannot be entered into
here, as the table treats of the ancient parishes in their civil aspect.

PopuLATION

The first census of England was taken in 1801, and was very little more than a counting of the
population in each parish (or place), excluding all persons, such as soldiers, sailors, &c., who formed
no part of its ordinary population. It was the de facto population (i.e. the population actually
resident at a particular time) and not the de jure (i.e. the population really belonging to any par-
ticular place at a particular time). This principle has been sustained throughout the censuses.

The Army at home (including militia), the men of the Royal Navy ashore, and the registered
seamen ashore were not included in the population of the places where they happened to be, at the
time of the census, until 1841. The men of the Royal Navy and other persons on board vessels (naval
or mercantile) in home ports were first included in the population of those places in 1851. Others
temporarily present, such as gipsies, persons in barges, &c. were included in 1841 and perhaps earlier.

GENERAL

Up to and including 1831 the returns were mainly made by the overseers of the poor, and
more than one day was allowed for the enumeration, but the 1841-1901 returns were made under
the superintendence of the registration officers and the enumeration was to be completed in one day.
The Householder’s Schedule was first used in 1841. The exact dates of the censuses are as follows :—

10 March, 1801 30 May, 1831 8 April, 1861 6 April, 1891
27 May, 1811 7 June, 1841 3 April, 1871 1 April, 1901
28 May, 1821 31 March, 1851 4 April, 1881

Notes ExpLaNATORY OF THE TABLE

This table gives the population of the ancient county and arranges the parishes, &c. under the
hundred or other subdivision to which they belong, but there is no doubt that the constitution of
hundreds, parishes, &c. was in some cases doubtful.

In the main the table follows the arrangement in the 1841 census volume.

The table gives the population and area of each parish, &c. as it existed in 1801, as far as possible,

The areas are those supplied by the Ordnance Survey Department, except in the case of those
marked ‘e,’ which were calculated by other authorities. The area includes inland water (if any),
but not tidal water or foreshore.

t after the name of a parish, part of parish, or place indicates that it was affected by the operation of
the Divided Parishes Acts, but the Registrar-General failed to obtain particulars of every such change.
The changes which escaped notification were, however, probably small in area and with little, if any,
population. Considerable difficulty was experienced both in 1891 and 1901 in tracing the results
of changes effected in civil parishes under the provisions of these Acts ; by the Registrar-General’s
courtesy, however, reference has been permitted to certain records of formerly detached parts of parishes,
which has made it possible approximately to ascertain the population in 1901 of parishes as constituted
prior to such alterations, though the figuresin many instances must be regarded as partly estimates.

{ after the name of a parish (or place) indicates that the ecclesiastical parish of the same name
at the 1901 census was co-extensive with such parish (or place).

O in the table indicates that there is no population on the area in question.

— in the table indicates that no population can be ascertained.

The word ‘chapelry’ seems often to have been used as an equivalent for ‘township’ in 1841,
which census volume has been adopted as the standard for names and descriptions of areas.

The figures in italics in the table relate to the area and population of such subdivisions of
ancient parishes as chapelries, townships, and hamlets.

486

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801-1901

Ancient noe 180r| 181r | 182r 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901
or Geo- age
graphi-
cal ‘ 3,881,218 859,133/977,820 1,173,106|1,371,966)1,592,059|1,797,995 2,033,610)2, 436, 3 30/2, 886,536 3,208, 502 3,584,675
County H
\ d
Acre-
PaRISH eso 180r | 1811 182r | 1831 | 184r | 1851 1861 1871 | 1881 | 1891 I9OI
East RIDING
Buckrose Wapen-
take
Acklam :— 3,652] 431 535 683 725 845 781 774 750 678 621 528
Acklam with 2,360] 255 310 389 371 411 334 366 359 287 282 223
Barthorpe
Township
Leavening 1,292 176 225 294 354 434 447 408 397 391 339 305
Township
Birdsall{ . . .| 4,031] 234 242 240 244 267 282 355 370 321 366 358
Bugthorpeft. . .] 1,915} 244 260 281 300 296 266 245 225 239 232 184
Burythorpet . .| 1,250] 135 202 216 211 226 289 265 260 262 227 225
Cowlamf . . «| 2,052) 17 28 33 49 44 35 69 51 63 59 52

Fridaythorpet. .] 1,920] 112 180 275 283 320 330 332 278 320 280 245
Grimston, North f | 1,564] 131 126 139 158 175 167 181 201 166 154 158
Helperthorpeft. .| 2,593 72 137 157 131 160 140 146 144 189 189 135

Heslerton ¢ :— 6,540] 268 440 469 514 563 618 603 618 650 446 469

Heslerton, East, | 3,586 139 194 196 215 235 267 262 271 304 220 211
Township ft

Heslerton, West,} 2,954 129 246 273 299 328 351 341 347 346 226 258
Township + ¢

a a 7,586] 276| 311 | 376] 414] 474] 554] 571 | 566) 534] 449] 415

ythe f :—

Duggleby Town-| 7,715 93| 102] 154| 186| 226| 294| 272| 279| 238] 183| 165

ship

Kirby Grinda- 4,526 144 166 178 184 195 210 249 259 243 225 201

lythe Township

Thirkleby Town-] 7,345 39 43 44 44 53 50 50 28 53 41 49

ship

Kirby Underdalet | 5,125] 230] 293] 335 | 293] 324| 335] 333] 359] 300| 297) 246
7

Kirkham, ae 273 29 14 31 54 52 56 41 51 40 47
ar.
Langton f :— 2,828] 266 292 363 341 |. 328 314 264 294 311 259 257
Kennythorpe 543) 50 59 83 75 72 73 57 52 50 68 76
Township
Langton Town- | 2,285 216 233 280 266 256 241 207 242 261 197 181
ship
Norton{$ . . .| 2,840] 615 849 | 1,168 | 1,425 | 1,644 | 2,315 | 2,983 | 3,170 | 3,482 | 3,683 | 3,842
Rillington ¢ :— 4,583} 581 741 883 955 | 1,051 | 1,228 | 1,132 | 1,095 | 1,118 | 1,004 g16
Rillington 2,171 380 567 683 724 800 953 884 874 877 760 716
Township t
Scampston 2,412 201 180 200 231 257 275 248 221 247 244 200
Chapelry ¢ t
Scrayingham f :— | 4,894] 461 476 | Sit 522 515 466} 480} 464} 397 388 351
Howsham 2,157 203 228 225 240 219 194 188 184 177 199 168
Township
Leppington 1,183] 118| 117| 129] 118| 110| 114} 132] 102 76 68 73
Township
Scrayingham 1,560 140 131 157 164 186 158 160 178 144 127 110

Township

1 Ancient County.—The County as defined by the Act 7 & 8 Vict. chap. 61, which affected Yorkshire to the fol-
lowing extent—viz., Crayke Parish was transferred from the County of Durham. The area includes certain
uninhabited lands common to two or more Parishes, which lands, however, are not included in the areas of the
Parishes to which they jointly belong. The area and population of Crowle with Ealand Township, a small part of
which is in Yorkshire, are entirely shown in Lincolnshire, and the entire area and population of Wallingwells Extra
Parochial Place, which is also partly in Yorkshire, are shown in Nottinghamshire.

The populations given for 1811 and 1821 exclude 8,206 and 789 Militia respectively, who were not assigned to
their respective Parishes, etc. (See also notes to Paull, Ampleforth St. Peter, Harwood Dale, Silpho, Great Mitton,
and Finningley.) -

487

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Paris — 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 190%
EAST RIDING
(cont.)
Buckrose Wapen-
take (cont.)
ettrington f :— 6,1 61 2 757 779 741 825 871 777 802 685 669
: Ses Areas 1206 200 lee 222 252 249 275 315 265 247 197 194
Township
Settrington 4,988 414 510 535 527 492 550 556 512 555 488 475
Townshi
Sherburnt . . 4,738] 288] 405] 496] 536] 623 656} 744] 688 726 | 688] 649
Skirpenbeck tf. .] 1,645] 167 185 263 214 222 190 198 204 153 149 130
Sledmeret . . .f 7,043] 335 | 388) 425] 480] 435] 437] 486] 461] Sor} 507] si2
Thorpe Bassettt ¢] 1,806] 145 152 156 206 201 207 219 183 192 180 170
Weaverthorpe:— | 5,601] 389 530 645 7353 952 | 1,066 | 1,033 | 1,098 | 1,056 898 760
Lutton, East and} 2,624 207 254 317 350 405 426 432 432 413 358 330
West Town
shipt
Weaverthorpe 2,977 182 276 334 403 547 640 607 666 643 540 430
Township {
Westow ft :— 3,014] 471 600 660 606 666 592 635 557 500 445 457
Eddlethorpe 718 55 62 53 73 49 57 52 56 43 54
Township i oa
Firby Township] 525 56 44 38 36 43 57 50 42 23 40
Menethorpe Boat 104 720 137 126 129 7110 124 102 65 64 69
Township
Westow Town- 7,789 274 369 423 389 428 390 409 353 337 315 294
shi
Wetwang f :— i 5:363] 274 4or 526 621 728 750 827 810 807 724 741

Fimber Chap. 1,927 87 106 104 139 170 179 204 195 184 158 145
Wetwang Town-] 3,436 193 295 422 482 558 571 623 615 623 566 596

ship
sida a 9,096} 255] 303] 336} 330] 372| 685] 484] 475 | 461 | 436] 427
ercy ? —
Raisthorpe and | 2,773 35 47 45 48 187 87 83 78 84 73
Burdale Town-
ship 206
Thixendale 3,872 137 184 207 239 266 279 278 254 234 217
Township
Towthorpe 1,712 45 55 61 48 50 61 62 59 72 62 97
Township
Wharram Percy] 7,459 38 42 44 30 35 1771 56 55 57 56 52
Township
Wharram-le-Street | 2,072} 112 Il4 127 150 135 131 140 145 137 133 Ir
Wintringham :— | 8,234] 368 477 532 589 603 588 602 557 570 528 475

Knapton Chap. t] 2,892] 739 | 176 | 206 | 242| 264| 253| 277| 248 | 246| 227\ 277
Wintringham =] 5,342) 229 | 307 | 326} 347| 339) 335| 331| 309| 324| 307] 258

Township ft
Yedinghamt tf. .[| 582} 115 92 127 109 122 104 108 117 137 IgI 117
Dickering

Wapentake
Argam . . . «J 559 21 20 35 29 30 40 27 41 39 40 40
Bempton ¢ os ePo77) 222 241 231 287 313 342 346 342 309 310 284
Bessingby t. . .] 1,270 87 82 83 83 66 92 70 99 141 171 382
Boynton { * « +s] 2,617 66 109 123 114 100 113 128 120 156 128 161
Bridlington :—~ —__ {12,333} 3,773 | 4,422 | 5.034 | 5,637 | 6,070 | 6,846 6,833 | 7,919 | 95177 | 9,701 |13,109

Bridlington and] 2,522] 3,130 3,741 | 4,275 | 4,792 5,162 | 5,839 | 5,775 | 6,203 6,642 | 6,840 | 9,528
Bridlington
Quay Town-

ship
Buckton roe 7,982 71717 162 147 171 182 182 187 153 151 147 158

ship
Easton Hamlet] 734 21 24 21 17 17 19 27 33 23 32 38
Grindale Chap. | 2,437 8&8 69 107 121 716 153 174 202 179 157 154

Hilderthorpe] 696} 40 51 51 73| 116 2 | 2,518
crea a 147 194 725 | 1,475 | 1,75 p

thorpe Town-
ship

2 Wharram Percy Parish.—The 18 lation i i
‘tie oe en 51 Population included a number of labourers temporarily employed on the
488

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (condinued)

ParRIsSH tee 1801 | 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 IgOI

East RIDING 4
(cont.)

Dickering
Wapentake (cont.)
Bridlington

(cont.) :-—
Sewerby with] 2,776] 279 248 317 352 352 356 342 452 547 628 567
Marton Town-
ship

Speeton Chap. ft] 7,852 104 127 116 117 125 150 140 157 160 151 146
Burton Agnest .] 6,564] 502 533 609 | 653 603 650 723 712 659 625 597
Burton Agnes 2,575 283 267 321 350 322 345 344 337 342 317 319

Township ¢
Gransmoor 1,253 49 73 85 93 90 83 108 114 84 68 69
Township t¢
Haisthorpe 1,390 89 1717 109 117 103 122 157 147 123 121 118
Township
Thornholme 1,346 87 82 94 93 88 100 114 114 110 119 91
Township +
Burton Fleming or] 3,910] 237 300 386 414 506 574 525 513 543 425 422
North Burton
Carnaby? . . .| 1,944] 129 132 130 155 185 161 152 170 180 200 192
Filey (part of) * :-—

Filey Township} 832] 505 579 773 802
Flamborough [. .] 3,081] 731 756 917 975

-_
N
w
Lal
Land
ww
ra
4
4
for)
ic)
o
N
N
On
x
1S
re)
Ww
N

2,481 | 3,003
,191 | 1,297 | 1,287 | 1,374 | 1,390 | 1,340 | 1,326

Folktont . . -[ 5,499} 266] 362] 411] 455} 580] 529] 559) 530] 488] 442] 439

Foston-on-the- 4,910] 377 512 648 715 792 786 759 700 683 582 480
Wolds ¢ t :-—

Brigham piles 1,382 80 84| 103 | 151 | 147) 139| 114 98 99 73 58
ship t

Foston-on-the 7,118 175 267 300 308 344 340 311 300 287 218 195
Wolds Town-

ship

Gembling Town-| 7,236 61 69 87 78 114 110 123 103 117 179 105
ship

Kelk, Great, 1,174 67 92 158 178 187 197 211 199 180 172 122
Township

Foxholes : — 4,304] 215 232 262 277 349 406 428 423 417 355 294

Pen 1,781 85 88 93 100 100 109 109 88 105 92 82

hap.
Foxholes with ; 2,523 130 144 169 177 249 297 319 335 312 263 212
Boythorpe

Township f

Fraisthorpe :— 2,040 87 78 g1 103 104 104 Iol 95 116 108 98

Fraisthorpe . .] 7,824 = cae — — 92 83 85 82 104 95 92

Auburn Hamlet] 276] — —_ _ _ 12 21 16 13 12 13 6

Gantont . . .[ 3,980] 223 259 278 275 428 382 352 342 339 376 393

ass te 4,146] 288 333 357 428 563 531 572 493 518 498 440

fo)

Harpham ft. t 2,144] 172 203 251 240 239 266 274 256 244 208 193

Hunmanby ® :— 8,458] 757 903 | 1,066 | 1,079 | 1,277 | 1,346 | 1,425 | 1,384 | 1,408 | 1,347 | 1,327

Fordon Chap. .| 7,464] — — 48 — 63 55 38 60 57 38 38

Hunmanby 6,994| 757 | 903 | 1,018 | 1,079 | 1,214 | 1,297 | 1,387 | 1,324 | 1,357 | 1,309 | 1,289
Township tf

Kelk, Little, Extra] 727 21 19 51 50 55 63 57 42 gI 70 60
Par.

Kilhamt. . . .| 8,176] 588 789 971 | 1,042 | 1,120 | 1,247 | 1,252 | 1,138 | 1,209 | 1,039 946

Langtoft { :— 6,174] 292] 368} 432] 523] 688) 739] 783] 753 | 731 | 664 | 615

Cottam Chap.| 2,590 16 15 16 25 41 58 95 116 113 99 107
Langtoft Town-] 3,584] 276 353 416 498 647 687 688 637 618 565 514

ship
Lowthorpe . . .} 1,967] 159 171 149 138 164 139 171 197 197 184 189
Mustont . . «| 2,291] 236] 275] 350] 382| 417] 399] 391 | 393] 395 | 341 | 340
Naffertont {:— | 5,821] 1,099 | 1,172 | 1,261 | 1,184 | 1,371 | 1,517 | 1,535 | 1,492 | 1,439 | 1,463 | 1,424
Nafferton Town-]| 4,899 721 804 917 | 1,032 | 1,129 | 1,260 | 1,377 | 1,256 | 1,230 1,235 | 1,232
ship ¢
Wansford Town-| 922 378 368 344 152 242 257 224 236 209 228 192
ship

® Carnaby Pavish.—The 1841 population included thirty-three gypsies in tents. __ ;
hah” Pavish is situated in Dickering Wapentake (East Riding) and in Pickering Lythe Wapentake (North
iding). F s
5 Hunmanby Parish includes Fordon Chapelry, the population of which was wrongly included in that of Wola
Newton Parish in 1831, and probably in 1801 and 1811.

3 489 62

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

PaRIsH nee 1801 1811 | 1821 | 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901
age

EAST RIDING

(cont.)

Dickering
Wapentake (cont.)
Reighton{ . . .} 1,827 149 175 217 234 22 247 251 250 254 252 219
Rudston t . + «1555471 290| 375) 417] $18] saa 599 | 605] Sor} 604} 578] 552
Ruston Parva . .] 972 94 113 140 152 172 185 161 147 129 140 84
Thwingt . . .[ 4,026] 217 268 314 350 452 444 416 402 439 367 326
Willerby { . . .[ 4,570] 192 267 297 356 364 422 468 413 415 446 365

Wold Newton * f.] 2,030] 106 198 177 252 245 276 351 339 310 292 274

Harthill Wapen-
take—Bainton
Beacon Division

Bainton f :— : 2 2 3 415 452 469 465 456 472 419 402
nes aan ae ae 200 237 30 358 392 404 399 388 400 365 320
Neswick 987 54 62 55 57 60 65 66 68 72 54 82

Township

Dalton, Northt .] 4,639] 272 326 398 | 468 450] 499] 486 479 489 520} 431

Dniffeld t :— 7,600] 1,483 | 2.025 | 2,471 | 2,854 | 3,477 | 4,259 | 45734 | 5,423 | 6,323 | 6,037 | 6,036
Driffield, Great, | 4,874 1857 | 2,303 | 2,660 | 3,223 | 3,963 | 4,405 | 5,067 | 5,937 | 5,700 | 5,762

Township + 1411
Driffield, Little, 388 82 75 92} 154| 186] 197 | 202] 218} 176| 142
Chap.
Emsvwell id f 2,398 72 86 93 102 100 110 132 154 168 161 132
Kelleythorpe
Township ¢
Holme-on-the- 1,516] 127 122 138 136 149 153 168 175 164 158 138
Wolds
Hutton Crans- 6,443} 694] 793 | 1,000 | 1,118 | 1,228 | 1,276 | 1,415 | 1,384 | 1,338 | 1,170 | 1,032

wick { :-—
Hutton Crans-] 4,874] 662 | 748 | 917 | 1,053 | 1,154 | 1,189 | 1,318 | 1,300 | 1,237 | 1,066 | 915
wick Town-

ship ¢
RotseaTownship 806 13 18 reel 30 33 ae 47 37 43 46 45
Sunderlandwick 823 19 27 60 35 41 52 59 47 58 58 72

Township +
Kilnwick :-— 4,406] 349 | 379} 452) 450] 495] 520] 558] 529] 519] 475 | 379
Beswick Chap. .] 2,029] 136 | 154 102 | 205 | 211 | 224) 252] 259| 247) 277 166
Bracken 677 14 22 30 28 33 32 34 30 37 25 28
Township
Kilnwick 1,700 199 203 230 217 251 264 272 240 241 239 185
Township
Kirkburn t :-— 6,221] 310 386 455 489 508 550 581 555 548 535 499
Eastburn 823 17 16 12 14 13 15 24 26 23 17 30
Township
Kirkburn with 1,410 92 115 119 141 149 166 158 167 150 152 141
Battleburn
Township
Southburn 1,103 75 87 103 107 97 98 90 87 94 88 92
Township
Tibthorpe 2,885 132 168 2271 227 249 271 309 287 281 278 236
Township
Lockington :— 3.756) 426 513 89} 64 62 631 68 6 I I
Aike Township.| 540] 47 84 08 8 98 108 103 98 aa of 33
Lockington : 3,216 379 429 491 559 526 523 586 553 514 488 458
ied Township -

UNG 52 ab Gas, cf SyOF 310 | 327] 357] 370} 419 03 Co) 461 60} 416} 407
Middletont . .| 3,664] 286 406 441 527 659 ae ae 701 iss 678 634
Scorborough . .| 1,386 61 86 83 79 81 go 89 100 66 82 79
Skerne Tr. . . .[ 2,762] 184 194 251 201 213 194 207 193 176 182 174
Wartert. . . .4 7,880] 355 | gor] 428 470 | 439] 488] 539] 610| 604] 578] 559
Watton... .14,738] 197 | 246] 307 345 | 329] 315] 343] 339|/ 319] 311] 299

Llarthill WVapen-
take—Holme

Beacon Division
Aughton t :— 4,626] 529} 643 702 665 6
34.| 654] 6 54.) 464] 396] 404
Aughton _ | 1947) 787 | 247 | 2691 217 277| 235 203 3 137 114 134
Township

5a See note 5 above.

490

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParRIsH pa r8or | r81z | 182r | 1831 1841 | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | 1907
East RIDING
(cont.)
Harthill Wapen-
take—Holme
Beacon Division
(cont.)
Aughton (cont.) :—
Cottingwith, 1,244 250 292 308 310 308 318 316 278 259 233 195
East, Chap.
Laytham 1,435 92 104 125 138 109 1717 115 98 68 49 75
Township
Brindleys Extra Par — 4 5 7 2 8 6]; — _— — _— —
Bubwith f :— 10,692] 1,172 | 1,260 | 1,455 | 1,358 | 1,370 | 1,361 1,453 | 1,374 | 1,261 | 1,208 | 1,071
Breighton cum 1,746 157 146 179 204 220 193 207 247 187 131 133
Gunby Town-
ship
Bubwith 1,545 424 477 540 461 524 583 554 573 514 566 475
Township
Foggathorpe 1,323 78 100 137 128 96 99 128 170 113 137 1717
Township
Gribthorpe 902 120 132 145 108 61 52 41 37 og 29 25
Township ©
Harlthorpe 759 62 74 93 105 103 78 99 85 81 55 56
Township
Spaldington 3,544 337 337 367 352 313 323 363 279 296 248 224
Township
Willitoft 873 a — — _ 53 33 61 43 43 48 47
Township
Ellerton Prioryft .[ 2,552] 243 271 318 305 3290 342 338 328 282 263 242
Everingham ft . .] 2,981 229 257 271 276 318 297 321 280 263 276 244
Goodmanhamf{.] 3,028 149 200 240 268 316 325 294 318 312 315 251
Harswellf . . «| 1,126 73 60 78 70 67 81 89 70 57 63 70
Hayton { :— 3637] 308] 340] 416] 434) 485] 525] 478) 461] 435] 394] 359
Bielby Chap. .] 7,738 173 188 239 248 273 305 268 244 220 195 197
HaytonTownship] 7,899 135 152 177 186 212 220 210 217 215 199 168
Holme-upon- 11,522] 1,024 | 1,165 | 1,318 | 1,438 | 1,509 | 1,713 | 1,913 | 1,976 | 1,893 | 1,815 | 1,678

Spalding Moor ¢
Londesborough f 4,258) 183 215 244 259 267 293 306 334 360 380 320
Nunburnholme

(part of) 7 :—
Thorpe-le-Street 676 15 16 37 31 30 24 33 29 38 31 29
Township
Seaton Rossf . .] 3,427] 385 | 395] 477] 436] 540] 568] 549} 550] 475 | gor| 376
sag eas 4373] 394] 433] 553) 582} 612] 622) 672] 622] 546] 471) 432
0: ce
Melbourne 3,149 308 347 437 463 514 535 568 534 462 388 356
Township
Storthwaite, or 1,224 86 92 116 119 98 87 104 88 84 83 76
Storwood
Township
Weighton, 7,357] 1,508 | 1,864 | 2,093 | 2,169 | 2,269 | 2,427 | 2,589 | 2,354 | 2,309 | 2,290 | 2,152
Market :—

Shipton Chap. .] 7,475 325 356 369 348 322 426 417 424 428 423 372
Weighton, Mar-} 5,882] 7,783 | 7,508 | 1,724 | 1,821 | 1,947 | 2,007 | 2,178 | 1,930 | 1,887 | 1,867 | 1,780
ket, and Arras
Township f
Wressell ° 3,981} 383 366 360] 386] 373 378 | 423 385 375 306 275

Harthill Wapen-
take—Hunsley
* Beacon Division

Bishop Burtont .] 4,263] 412 | 515 | 534 | 556| 532] 566| 499] 469] 459] 466] 415
Brantingham
(part of) 1° :—
Thorpe Brant- 780 — — — 66 112 58 79 63 —_ _ _
ingham Town-
ship
5 Gribthorpe Township.—The population includes that of Willitoft Township, 1801-1831.
7 Nunburnholme Parish is situated in Harthill Wapentake—Holme Beacon and Wilton Beacon Divisions.
8 Thornton Parish is situated in Harthill Wapentake—Holme Beacon and Wilton Beacon Divisions.
° Wressell Parish includes the area of Brindleys and its population 1861-1901.
10 Brantingham Parish is situated in Harthill Wapentake—Hunsley Beacon Division—and in Howdenshire Wapen-
take. The entire population of the parish is shown for the years 1801-1821 and 1881-1901 in the Howdenshire
Wapentake; that of Thorpe Brantingham Township being included in that of Brantingham Township.

491

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Paris Acre-] J94, | s8rx | r82r | 183x | 184x | 1852 | 1861 | 87x | 188 | 1891 | r90r
age
East RIDING
(cont.)
Harthill Wapen-
take — Hunsley
Beacon Division
eae 8 8 6 1,116 | 1
Cave, North,:— J 7.272] 874 942 | 1,091 | 1,000 | 1,217 | 1,138 | 1,201 1,169 | 1,230 | 1, III
Cave, North, 639 | 665| 733| 747| 897| 899] 976] 883
Townshi
Drewton ein 5,143 129 151 177 149 184 153 186 180 )| 1,135 | 1,006 | 1,019
Everthorpe
Township
Cliff, South, 2,129| 106| 126) 131| 104) 136 86| 119| 106 95 | 110 92
bead 8 4 1,377 | 1,443 | 1,430 | 1,386 | 1,362
Cave, South, ¢:— | 7,18 72 | 1,062 } 1,190 | 1,200 | 1,852 | 1,427 ; Z ; ; :
Broomfleet ri2?| 496 | ‘164 | 142| 190| '206| '172| 193| 226) 227) 231| 215
Township ¢
Cave, South, 4,335 707 718 885 833 | 1,288 937 894 948 960 949 970

Township”
Faxfleet Town- | 1,723] 139| 780| 163| 177| 358| 312| 290| 269 | 249) 206) 177
ship

Cherry Burtont .| 3,469] 296] 358] 417] 447] 455] 496] 502) 454 458) 429] 391
Cottingham™ + —.| 9,735] 1,927 | 2,299 | 2.479 | 25575 | 2,618 | 2,854 | 3,140 | 4,015 6,177 |10,103 |16,987

Dalton, South. .]| 1,848] 190 a2 277 273 269 299 | 338 273 263 242 264
Elloughton™ t :— ] 2,649] 361 440 | 427 | 405 712 555 688 708 932 980 | 1,009
Elloughton-cum-| 7,628] 332 390 383 355 664 506 641 663 888 927 954
Brough Town-
ship
Wauldby Town- | 7,027] 29 50 44 50 48 49 47 45 44 53 55
ship
Etton ft . 3,729] 32 | 338] 380] 407| 425] 498] 502] 492] 498] 398] 422
Hothamft . . .]| 2,826] 256 295 293 286 430 336 333 378 372 332 305
Leconfield and 3,624] 316 290 302 301 347 362 348 357 320 312 347
Arram
New Village, or 510] 108 141 149 140 160 146 144 124 _ _ _
Wallingfen
Extra Par. 4
Newbald *° ¢ :— 5,958] 661 706 | 722 769 | 973 go8 glo 827 804 799 731
Newbald, North, | 3,976 517 553 543 575 738 665 699 641 648 627 565
Township
Newbald, South, | 7,982 144 153 179 194 235 243 2711 186 156 172 166
Township
Rowleyt . . .| 6,428] 347| 370] 425 | 45: | 507] 498) 476] 516] 593) 512) 519
Sancton :— 4,478] 371 396 423 462 505 519 476 460 49! 415 423
Cliff, North, 7,304 89 99 8&9 85 74 81 76 95 127 77 77
Township t¢
Sancton and 3,174 282 297 334 377 431 4138 400 365 370 338 346
Houghton
Township ¢
Sculcoates® . .| 738] 5.448 | 8,645 |10,449 |13,468 [16,682 |22,325 |27,167 |33,812 |45,425 [54,182 [56,820
Skidby with 1,561] 243 287 | 313 315 361 361 384] 396] 419 | 387] 356
Skidby Carr +
Walkington
(part of 17 :—
Provost’s Fee — — 217 209 177 282 266 262 279 _— _ _
Manor

Alarthill Wapen-
take—WVWilton
Beacon Division

Allerthorpe :— 2,393| 136} 146] 151 | 185 199 | 209] 205| 2 8
‘ og | 172] 19 147
Allerthorpe 7,580 125 132 132 167 154 164 147 172 150 139 117
Township

‘1 South Cave Township—The population in 1841 included 316 strangers attending a cattle fair.

12 Cottingham Parish includes Haltemprice Farm, formerly Extra Parochial.

. Elloughton and Hotham Parishes.—The population in 1841 included a number of strangers attending Cave Fair.

_ 4 The population of New Village in 1881-1901 is included in that of Eastrington Parish (Newport Wallingfen Town-

ship). See below.

7 New!ad Parish.—The population in 1841 included 177 strangers attending the annual feast.

: Sculcoates Parish includes the Charter House, formerly reputed to be Extra Parochial.

*Wa-Armcton Parish is situated in Harthill Wapentake—Hunsley Beacon Division—and in Howdenshire Wapen-
take. The entire area of the parish and its population for the years 1801 and 1881-1901 are shown in the Howden-
shire Wapentake. A lunatic asylum for the East Riding was opened between 1871 and 1881.

492

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—r1901 (continued)

Acre-

PaRIsH ne 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 | 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 | Igor
fn}
East RIDING
(cont.)
Harthill Wapen-
take—Wilton
Beacon Division
(cont.)
Allerthorpe
(cont.):—
Waplington 813 11 14 19 18 45 45 58 37 22 59 30
Township
Barmby-on-the- 2,579] 321 | 396] 440] 452] 475 | 486) 537) 456] 437} 440] 533
oor
Bishop Wilton t:—| 6,693] 635 | 672] 793 | 831) 792] 886] gro | 822] 760) 636 | 667
Bishop Wilton 4,573 413 454 570 622 592 652 658 580 556 422 451
with Belthorpe
Township
Bolton Township} 940 92 94 112 103 98 129 127 149 119 118 131
Youlthorpe with } 7,780 130 124 1711 106 102 105 125 93 85 96 85
Gowthorpe
Township!
Bumby ft . -. -] 1,702 Ill 113 95 93 18 fe) 129 126 144 124 115 11g
Catton (part of)§:—] 4,152] 498 | 514 | 673] 784] 769] 760} 811 | 742) 741 | 742] 675
Catton, High, 1,684 181 181 198 227 185 177 215 190 194 166 146
Township
Catton, Low, 1,346 147 145 177 178 176 176 179 162 148 193 135
Township
Stamford Bridge | 7,722 170 188 298 385 408 407 417 390 399 383 394
East Township
FangfosswithSpittle] 1,409] 131 145 154 155 185 188 170 197 172 177 142
Full Sutton ¢ 896] 100 126 125 140 146 165 174 171 127 127 119
Givendale, Great .] 1,313 70 84 89 78 85 75 86 70 81 73 60
Huggatef{ . «| 7,007] 302 362 413 439 482 547 589 557 553 463 455
Kilnwick Perc { .} 1,579 43 60 43 49 58 93 132 122 118 73 87
Millington 2,511 183 205 282 255 268 289 275 227 184 193 159
Nunburnholme
(part of) 18 ;—
Nunburnholme | 1,857] 125 152 203 222 233 229 248 252 248 252 220
Township f
Pocklington { :— | 4,792] 1,665 | 1,752 } 2,163 | 2,265 | 2,552 | 2,761 | 2,923 | 2,889 | 2,980 | 2,785 | 2,686
Meltonby 41 79 78 60 49 57 66
Townshi
Yapham ry} 7854 707 | 722| 174| 137] 163] 157] 169 | 298| 235 | 197 | 208
Township
Ousethorpe 333 15 12 9 20 17 13 17 29 12 17 20
Township
Pocklington 2,571} 1,502 | 1,539 | 1,962 | 2,048 | 2,323 | 2,546 | 2,671 | 2,622 | 2,733 | 2,577 | 2,463
Township
Sutton-upon-Der- | 3,670] 274 292 | 400 417 407 367 385 337 342 299 313
went
Thornton (part }
of)#8> ;—
Thornton Town-]| 2,327] 217 201 198 209 202 194 179 159 158 151 137
ship
Wilberfoss ¢ :-— 3,187] 470] 525 590 580 | 586} 602 632 616 | 610 585 562
Newton-upon- 1,715 188 209 205 228 229 235 246 227 196 204 216
Derwent
Township
Wilberfoss 1,472] 282 316 385 352 357 367 386 389 414 381 346
Township
Holderness Wapen-
take— Middle
Division
Aldbrough + :— 6,843] 751 873 | 998 | 1,015 | 1,100 | 1,100 | 1,082 | 952] 9gol 863 | 854
Aldbrough 4,167 555 687 802 813 845 834 831 730 724 666 680
Township t
Newton, East, 607 24 39 38 29 41 27 31 36 30 31 27
Township
Newton, West, 2,069 172 147 158 173 214 239 220 186 147 166 147
with Burton
Constable
Township

18 Catton Parish is situated in Harthill Wapentake— Wilton Beacon Division—and in Ouse and Derwent Wapentake.
18a See note ’7 above.

493

18b See note 8 above.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParisH aoe 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901
age
EAST RIDING
(cont.)
Holderness Wapen-
take— Middle
Division (cont.)
Burton Pidsea f 2,304] 272 299 378 387 364 394 408 373 352 ane 285,
Drypool :— 1,641] 671 | 1,461 | 2,207 | 2,935 | 3390 | 4421 | 6,241 [12,254 ]20,735 [30,005 40599
Drypool Town- 231 436 818 | 1,409 | 1,827 | 2,223 2,748 | 3,437 | 4,199 | 4,427 | 8,054 | 8,289
shi
Sout coates 1,410] 235 643 798 | 1,114 | 1,167 | 1,673 | 2,804 8,055 |16,308 |22,551 |32,310
Garton i 3,138] 214 288 299 297 303 268 253 242 246 219 201
Garton with 7,800 105 123 160 172 179 165 154 160 157 130 121
Grimston
Township
Owstwick Town-] 7,338 109 165 139 125 124 103 99 8&2 89 89 80
ship
Hedon{. -] 321) §92 780 2 | 1,080 | 998 | 1,029 975 996 | 966 979 | 1,010
Hilston «| 554 37 40 3 43 41 50 54 42 39 38 29
Humbleton f= | 6,303) 498 | $17] 586] $79 | S63) 587) Sot] 555) SOI) soo) 483
Danthorpe 737 51 47 52 37 43 41 62 41 63 62 50
Township
Elstronwick 1,159 126 119 154 153 143 157 130 117 98 94 123
___ Township
Fitling Town- 1,530 127 129 119 103 131 136 139 143 137 105 103
ship
Flinton Town-] 7,399 105 117 125 126 114 108 125 113 103 87 83
ship
Humbleton 1,478 89 117 136 160 137 145 138 141 160 152 124
Township
Marfleet f «7 1,285 116 121 127 130 141 193 176 199 183 235 373
Owthorne (part
of)? :-—
Waxholme 533 61 60 72 68 99 106 84 82 94 71 63
Township
Preston f :— 5,809] 788 922 947 957 | 1,082 | 1,038 | 1,061 | 1,049 | 1,016 | 1,064 | 1,119
Lelley Township 805 107 123 119 114 136 157 159 132 135 116 122
Preston Town-| 5,004 687 799 828 843 946 887 902 917 887 948 997
ship
Roos . . . . «| 2,528] 272] 365| 442| 430] 563] 599| 594] 570| 534] 492] 436
Sproatleyt . . .| 1,372] 232 | 267] 357] 366] 372| 463] 455 | 401} 331 | 325 | 306
Sutton and Stone-| 4,741] 1,569 | 3,065 | 3.055 | 4,383 | 6,384 | 7,783 | 8,348 | 8,928 11,551 |13,300 |15,043
ferry
Swine (part of) ?”:— 12,216] 1,078 | 1,162 | 1,344 | 1,393 | 1,424 | 1,446 | 1,500 | 1,419 | 1,473 | 1,365 | 1,413
Benningholme 1,471 78 85 97 105 108 79 106 84 120 88 107
and Grange
Township t¢
Bilton Chap. 7,205 107 107 91 105 84 99 102 117 91 101 92
Coniston Town- 602 106 112 137 116 110 115 101 128 103 117 116
ship
Ellerby Town-] 2,248 157 188 233 251 275 287 304 326 344 331 358
ship
Ganstead Town-| 809 58 63 61 79 66 81 80 78 96 87 83
ship
Marton Town- 946 127 119 129 126 119 110 117 97 96 70 68
ship
Skirlaugh,South, | 7,707 123 160 217 228 286 322 364 300 293 261 261
_ Township ¢
Swine Township] 2,286 204 196 229 231 227 193 182 180 195 201 216
Thirtleby Town- 756 44 54 61 59 58 69 68 69 55 44 48
ship
Wyton Town- 792 86 84 95 93 91 91 76 46 80 71 64
ship
Tunstall . = +f 1,305] 145 133 163 172 159 159 166 144 120 121 98
eens Wag-] 5,127] 348] 313 | 325 | 338) 362) 347} 408) 444] 400} 393] 375
[=) 0 1a Ge
Meaux, or Melsa | 7,409 49 63 74 83 95 89 86 91 101 76 74
E Township
Wawne, or Wag-| 3,778] 299 | 250 | 251 | 255 | 267| 258 | 322| 353| 299| 317| 301
hen Township

19 Outhorne Parish is situated in Holderness Wapentake—Middle and South Divisions.
20 Swine Parish is situated in Holderness Wapentake— Middle and North Divisions.

494

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParIsH es r8or | 181r | 1821 | 183x | 1841 | 185: | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | ro0r
East RIDING
(cont.)
Holderness Wa-
pentake—North
Division
Atwickt . . .| 2,271] 368 286 326 285 300 | 324 319 314 320 298 284
Barmstonf{. . .] 2,391 163 206 205 223 254 249 206 200 198 213 211
Beeford f :— 5751, 567 667 791 894 977 | 1,000 | 1,006 922 884 931 836
~Beeford 3,754 378 524 620 731 766 808 808 745 707 728 648
Township
Dunnington 845 67 49 76 61 79 69 86 81 87 98 90
Township
Lissett Chap. .] 7,752 122 94 95 102 132 123 112 96 90 105 98
Beverley St. John
(part of) #! :—
Eske Township] 1,089 32 26 18 17 29 45 33 43 30 56 45
Brandes- 5184] 464] 549] 591 611 718 779 | 811 692 755 683 626
burton ¢ f :—
Brandesburton 4,671 432 509 562 585 684 751 784 658 723 664 604
Township t¢
Moor Town 513 32 40 29 26 34] 28 27 34 32 19 22
Township
Catwickt . . .f 1,570] 132 141 190 213 IgI 206 248 273 272 231 195
Frodmgnam, a 31377 365 | 484] 575 | 711] 831 | 846] 837] 696] 682] 596] 555
ort
Goxhillf{ . . .} 839 54 68 70 65 64 58 63 70 76 83 60
Hornsea “ie 3,316) 533 704 790 780 | 1,005 945 | 1,063 | 1,685 | 1,836 | 2,013 | 2,381
urton
Leven + tf :— 5,050] 468) 648) 751 | 771 | 999] 993] 990] 921] 967] 892] 763
Hempholme 1,352 57 74 93 102 109 117 107 95 120 123 104
Township t
Leven Township] 3,698 471 574 658 669 890 876 889 826 847 769 659
Mappleton :— 4,948] 4o1| 434] 460] 473| 494] 514] 538] 409] 448] 438] 393
Cowden, Great} 7,548 115 113 146 146 151 146 154 150 179 112 95

and Little,

Township
Hatfield, Great, | 7,488 127 130 127 146 145 165 171 147 151 147 137
Township
Mappleton : 157 164 163 150 139
Townshi
Rowlston P 7,912 159 197 187 187 41 39 50 52 39 179 167
Hamlet
Nunkeeling with 2,314] 173 198 243 263 291 269 271 250 272 238 231
Bewholme tf
Riset . . . «| 2,041} 155 203 221 164 181 197 188 206 202 181 132
Riston, Longt .] 1,834] 269 328 361 379 403 400 4ol 417 367 373 368
Routht . . . .f 2,438] 115 128 124 119 178 172 172 163 164 169 159
Sigglesthorne :— | 4,839] 383 | 437| 538) 578] 639] 653] 768] 715 | 726] 657| 659
CatfossTownship] 7,087 46 57 49 54 45 39 68 61 53 55 45
Hatfield, Little, 976 24 30 25 3a 36 44 40 39 38 27 41
Township
Seaton with 1,745 178 215 307 288 338 360 443 387 418 358 357
Wassand
Township
Sigglesthorne 1,037 135 135 163 204 220 210 217 228 217 217 222
‘ Township
Skipsea :— 5633] 516| 643] 693] 726] 797| 844] 844] 788] 772) 711 | 625
Bonwick 775 37 29 30 22 29 25 31 20 23 16 14
Township
Dringhoe, 1,703} 122| 158] 164| 152| 7190| 163| 157| 142] 157] 156] 136
Upton, and
Brough Town-
ship ;
Skipsea 1,566) 220| 290| 329| 386| 358| 435| 444| 394 | 398| 341) 288
Township

Ulrome Chap. {] 7,589 143 166 170 166 220 221 212 232 194 198 187
Swine(part of) :—
Skirlaugh, North,}| 534] — 192} 260] 210] 279] 298] 323| 339 | 284] 208] 182
Township t

Withernwick + t .| 2,822] 292] 356] 370| 443| 456| 513} 499| 503| 449] 365 | 371

| Beverley St. John Parish is situated in Holderness Wapentake—North Division—and in Beverley—Borough and
Liberties. ala See note 20 above.

495

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

PaRISH nee 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901
East RIDING
(cont.)
Holderness Wa-
pentake—South
Division
Burstwick f:— .]5,912] 549] 624} 751 810} 745 | 728] 729} 697| 700] 697
Burstwick-cum- | 4,338] 335 360 436 436 524 509 485 470 422 437 476
Sheckling
Township
Ryhill and 1,574 214 264 315 263 286 236 243 259 275 263 221
Camerton
Township
Easington :— 2,884] 341 | 448] 557] 542] 546} 625 | 666] 533] 425] 413] 398
Easington 2,236 306 389 488 479 492 567 600 481 382 371 362
Township
Out Newton 648 35 59 69 63 54 58 66 52 43 42 36
Township
Halsham ¢ 12,910] 266] 265 315 302 284 264 265 245 228 241 222
Hollym :— 2,866] 2 333 368 351 373 516 625 617 580 636 861
Hollym 2,120 223 229 260 22t 247 407 423 388 248 235 216
Township
Withernsea 746 76 104 108 130 126 109 202 229 332 401 645
Township
Holmpton 1,875 165 214 256 239 197 92 116 131 216 195 171
Keyingham } 3,549] 399] 550] 639] 636] 728] 746] 639} 620] 635] 587] 549
Kilnsea . gi2 98 122 196 158 140 DG: 179 240 198 194 277
Ottringham ¢ 4,305] 622 22 637 627 630 663 644 623 568 515 466
sie (part 3,492] 246) 249] 343] 333] 365] 356] 620] 633] 722] 804 | 1,070
ce) —_
Frodingham, 1,206 50 68 74 60 68 56 59 67 63 67 70
South, Township!
Owthorne 7,052 89 74 143 129 154 163 424 428 540 614 862
Township
Rimswell 1,234 107 107 129 144 143 137 137 138 119 123 138
Township
Patrington { 3,743] 894 | 1,016 | 1,244 | 1,298 | 1,402 | 1,827 | 1,724 | 1,571 | 1,360 | 1,127 | 1,104
Paull ¢ :-— | 6593] 602} 789} 745} 739] 870] 884] 844] 773] 812] 822] 847
sae eal 4935 412 574 486 473 599 606 552 496 545 537 575
ownship
Sale later 1,658 190 215 259 266 271 278 292 277 267 291 272
ownship
Skeffling F 1,830] 155 159 201 204 179 212 20 18 166 I 138
Sunk Island * ¢ 7,332 fo) 209 216 242 264 310 ae ae 419 ae a
Welwick ¢ 3,610] 312 372 410} gol 403 468 472 368 341 313 282
Winestead t 2,109} 103 105 129 145 139 131 173 131 163 151 156
Aowdenshire
Wapentake
Blacktoft + :— 3,508] 304 338 457 4 ° 22 2 12 I
Blacktoft 2006 238 247 278 3h 73 357 a2 ph 330 334 355
Township +
or uy Loe 66 97 179 127 131 145 114 98 8&2 98 31
Brantingh -
ae nae ae 2,671] 354] 341 | 423] 402] 523] 489] 493] 522] 570] 568] 358
Brantingham 565} 173) 132) 174| 124] 150| 166| 152] 199| 274] 269| 278
Township
Ellerker 2,706 187 209 249 278 373 323 347 323 296 299 280
eh Township 7
eapsides 7 — fo) a
Extra Par. ; af af 39 36 — 37 5 a
Eastrington ¢ :— | 6,843] 1,089 1,358 | 1,64 6
st : : 1649 | 1,676 | 2,076 | 1,867 | 1,906 | 1,748 | 1,814 | 1,783 | 1,755
Bellasize aaa 1,722) 153) 205| 1971 789| 306| '276| '281| '230| ’217| °233| 229
ce een i 1,679 330 352 375 328 405 386 432 431 368 426 426
Gilberdyke 1,616] 337 | 464| 64
Township + , 0 632 815 721 725 647 601 572 526

31 See note 19 above.

33 Sunk Island is stated, in the 1811 volume, to b

22 Paull Township.—The 1801 population is estimated.

% Scalby Township.—The population in 1821 included that of Cheapsides.

496

e ‘lately recovered from the sea.’

34a See note 10 above.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParisH ae 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 Igor
East RIDING
(cont.)
Howdenshire
Wapentake (cont.)
Eastrington
(cont.) :—
Newport 510 169 219 339 367 427 373 348 330 533 444 489
Wallingfen
Township ™° +
Portington 1,316 100 118 98 160 123 177 120 110 95 108 85
and Cavil
Township + 3
Howden } :— 18,347] 3,415 | 3,888 | 4,443 | 4,531 | 4,860 | 5,178 | 5,209 | 4,805 | 4,232 | 4,261 | 4,123
Asselby 1,163] 259 247 254 297 293 296 276 267 255 263 220
Township t+
Balkholme 1,287 120 89 105 117 165 220 184 113 88 86 80
Township +
Barmby-on-the- | 7,862] 364 476 525 473 506 500 456 445 314 385 373
Marsh Chap. ft f
Belby 724 38 38 49 44 58 40 44 43 39 33 16
Township +
Cotness 713 27 26 29 29 38 28 46 39 30 36 55
Township t¢
Howden 3,055] 1,552 | 1,812 | 2,080 | 2,130 | 2,332 | 2,497 | 2,507 | 2,355 | 2,192 | 1,960 | 1,975
Township t+
Kilpin 906 183 243 318 349 393 385 476 395 332 393 376
Township +
Knedlington 824 90 98 118 123 142 178 138 136 99 137 717
Township t¢
Laxton Chap. f .] 7,326 219 271 268 281 266 332 327 342 291 272 237
Metham 1,016 38 41 45 35 42 60 91 66 62 55 69
Township t¢
Saltmarshe 1,386 160 168 179 191 157 144 136 120 82 109 105
Township t+
Skelton 2,000 146 166 221 228 212 262 305 289 259 303 297
Township +
Thorpe 310 54 52 53 44 50 36 33 40 62 61 77
Township +
Yokefleet 1,787 165 167 199 190 206 206 190 155 127 168 132
Township +
Walkington
(part of)¥* :—
Howden Fee 35729] 403 233 324 381 351 433 356 | 382] 978) 950 | 1,160
Manor
Welton ¢ :— 2,675] 547 634 683 805 987 856 863 85c 841 830 787
Melton Chap. f. 897 98 718 107 133 195 174 175 181 172 171 167
Welton 1,778 449 516 576 672 792 682 688 669 669 659 620
Township t
Ouse and Derwent
Wapentake
Catton (part of)#4:] 3,838] 252] 288| 300] 311 | 309] 315} 378] 353] 286] 289] 280
Kexby Township 7,892 129 145 149 160 159 150 182 194 136 132 125
Stamford Bridge] 7,946 123 143 151 157 150 165 196 159 150 157 155
West with Score-
by Township
Dunnington ¢t :— } 3,042] 481 | 557] 623] 713} 765] 850] 906] 890) 799] 744) 735
Dunnington 2,246} 430 494 557 643 685 779 842 840 741 680 654
Township
Grimston 796 51 63 72 70 80 71 64 50 58 64 87
. Township
Elvington® ¢ . .| 2,366] 225 | 311] 405 | 301] 478] 372| 472| 449| 376| 357) 335
Escrick {| — 6,350] 578 | 582| 716] 896} 805] gor | 855} 841) 785} 846) 744
Deighton 2,007 172 168 168 179 185 201 201 190 196 193 200
Township
Escrick 4,349] 406| 414 | 548| 717| 710| 700) 654) 651 | 589 | 653 | S44
Township

2b See note 14 above.

2c See note 17 above.
28 Elvington Pavish.—The annual village feast was in progress at the date of the 1841 Census.

497

24d See note 18 above

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParisH ree r8or | r8rr | r82r | 31831 | 184r | 1851 | 1861 1871 1881 1891 | 1901

EAST RIDING
(cont.)

Ouse and Derwent
Wapentake (cont.)

Fulfords Ambo* :—4 2,011] 642 885 847 | 934 | 1,305 | 1,981 | 2,478 | 3,578 | 6,756 | 7,576 | 8,217
Gate Fulford 1,655| 642] 857 | 812] 905 | 1,268 | 1,939 | 2,443 | 3,537 | 6,717 | 7,536 | 8,162

Township
Water Fulford 356 — 34 35 29 37 42 35 41 39 40 55
Township
Heming- 11,010} 1,484 | 1,618 | 1,855 | 1,806 | 1,953 | 2,072 | 2,297 | 2,344 | 2,271 | 2,131 | 2,212
brough ¢ :—

Barlby Chap. ¢ t] 7,482 247 263 349 348 387 433 471 524 513 458 561
Brackenholme 1,332 65 79 90 69 77 71 102 113 100 92 115
with Woodhall
Township
Cliffe-cum-Lund | 2,740] 424 459 501 490 540 592 615 614 647 605 593
Township t
Duffield, South, | 7,685] 760) 177 | 187 202| 224] 186] 236] 227| 193| 208} 204
Township
Hemingbrough 1,123] 387 429 500 468 475 528 579 580 550 507 498
Township
Menthorpe with | 7,088 61 53 49 59 82 77 69 69 49 63 51
Bowthorpe
Township
Osgodby 1,560 146 158 185 170 168 185 225 223 225 198 190
Township
Heslington St. 1,244] 150 152 221 231 266 228 233 246 223 233 506
Paul ¢ ft
Naburn Parochial | 2,631] 363 346 | 366) 425] 439] 481 471 485 569 | 566] 574
Chap. tf

Riccalt [ . . «| 2,667] 517 518 599 705 718 690 783 795 780 736 702
Skipwith f :— 6,053] 560] 596] 748] 648] Gor} 705} 769] 722] 654] 605] 548
Duffield, North, | 3,407 313 346 433 344 350 422 470 415 376 325 309
Township
Skipwith 2,646 247 250 315 304 257 283 299 307 278 280 239
Township
silling fect (part | 4,377] 479} 537] 690/ 708] 733] 840] 810} 749! 709 649 | 590
fe) —_
Kelfield 1,791 175 209 286 302 315 427 388 392 343 297 288
Township
Stillingfleet 2,586 304 328 404 406 418 419 @22 357 366 352 302
with Moreby
Township

Thorganby with | 2,921] 294] 403] 381 | 342] 373] 388] 4o7 389 | 398] 370} 345
West Cotting-

with ¢
Wheldrake f :— 5,304] 522 618 677 691 722 722 678 642 638 580 575
Langwith 793 29 37 39 44 40 33 47 39 42 52 57
Township
Wheldrake 4,511 493 587 638 647 682 689 631 603 596 528 518
Township

York St. Laurence
(part of) 38 :—
Heslington 1,401] 266 286 292 305 265 266 307 325 254 244 vai

St. Laurence
Township t¢

Beverley—Bor-
ough and Liber-

ties
St. John (part of)**:] 7,390] 600 696 736 831 | 1
097 | 1,143 | 1,214 | 1,231 | 1,689 | 1,545 | 1,479
Molescrof a [70] 67 | 98] 791) 724 Was ‘tae! 4g) geal gee | seed aes
or oscro

Township

26 ; . F rae
ha ae . ~ Parish.—The increase in population in 1881 was largely due to the erection of new barracks in Gate

* Stillinzjleet Parish is situated in Ouse and Derwent Wapentake and in the Ainsty.

* York St. Laurence Parish is situated in the Ouse and Derwent Wa i i
F pentake and in the City of York. The popu-
es - the part in the Ouse and Derwent Wapentake is shown in 1901 with the remainder of the parish in the City
of York. *8a See note 21 above.

498

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-
PaRISH a 1801 1811 1821 1831 | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 ,; 1891 | 1gor
East RIDING
(cont.)
Beverley—Bor-
ough and Liber-
ties (cont.)
St. John (part of)
(cont.) :—
Stork Hill (with 320, — 30 48 34 61 61 70 60 47 53 42
Sandholme)
Township
Thearne 686 74 87 90 67 88 99 113 104 98 97 97
Township
Tickton with 775 134 119 110 710 251 274 272 307 369 305 229
Hull Bridge
Township
Weel Township.| 7,737 96 106 101 136 133 135 126 120 114 720 136
Woodmansey 3,118 229 262 276 360 429 441 490 482 883 774 772
with Beverley
Park Township
St. Martin ¢ 873] 2,407 | 2,639 | 2,937 | 3,334 | 3.332 | 3,917 | 4.413 | 4,467 | 4,827 | 5,283 | 5,912
St.Mary. . . 579} 2,551 | 2,918 | 3,214 | 3,359 | 3,267 | 3,082 | 3,831 | 4,086 | 4,221 | 4,345 | 4,103
St. Nicholas} . g60] 443 478 577 739 975 | 1,316 | 1,410 | 1,665 | 2,377 | 2,911 | 3,168
Kingston-upon-
Hull—Town
and County of
the Town
TOWN PART
Holy cea? om 1,114 [22,161 |24,299 |28,591 [32,958 [41,150 |50,670 |56,888 |68,316 |78,222 |77,947 82,245
t. Mary
Hull Citadel Extra] — _ _ _ _ 479 | 465 — _— —_ — _
Par.
CounTY PART
aie! i 4,499] 571 | 692] 765 | 823] 935 | 929] 948 | 1,733 | 6,873 |16,863 [27,881
orth ¢ :—
Ferriby, North, | 7,744] 250| 315 | 347| 345 | 479| 472| 434| 517 | 837 | 2,378 | 4,469
Township +
Swanland 3,355] 327 377 418 478 456 457 514 | 1,216 | 6,036 |14,485 '23,412
Township +
Garrison Side Ios} — _ 173, | 366 160 195 376 171 164 | 268 303
Extra Par, 7°
Hessle. . . 2,732] 681 984 | 1,021 | 1,172 | 1,388 | 1,576 | 1,625 | 2,004 | 2,557 | 2,892 | 3,918
Kirk Ella¢ :— 4,274) 655 | 817] 875 | 974 | 1,061 | 1,157 | 1,148 | 2,218 | 3,414 | 4,424 } 8,483
Anlaby 1,471 226 271 307 398 423 500 493 494 629 749 ; 1,004
Township
Kirk Ella 1,162] 212 272 246 285 291 306 250 304 494 542 576
Township ¢
West Ella 645 79 103 122 102 133 137 154 557 888 | 7,199 | 4,197
Township t
Willerby 996} 138| 171] 200| 189 | 214| 214 | 257 | 869 | 1,403 | 1,934 | 2,706
Township ¢
og w8or | 1811 | 182z | 1831 | 184z | 1851 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | I901
Total of the East — |II1,192/132,415|153,854|168,891|194,936|220,983'240,227 268,4.76)315,478|348,426 392,392
Riding

29 Garrison Side includes the area of Aull Citadel and its population 1861-1901.

499

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—I1901 \continued )

PaRisH pore 1801 w81r | 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901

age

CITY, AND AINSTY
OF THE CITY, OF

YORK
City of York
All Saints North 12] 517] 639] 910] 1,216 | 1,199 | 1,308 | 1,417 | 1,380 | 1,429 | 1,241 | 1,020
Street {
All Saints 5} 477| 496] 554) 508| 417] 423] 387] 411} 334] 266 / 220
Pavement
All Saints — _ —_ 223 | 407] 373| 426| 384] 424); — _— -
Peaseholme ®
Holy Trinity 3] 441) 492) 527) 540; 551] 526, 431 | 394, 451 | 285 273
Goodramgate
Holy Trinity 4] 691 660 737 706 685 720 599 610 595 526 500
King’s Court, or
Christ Church
Holy Trinity 63] 859 822 845 | 1,108 | 1,212 | 1,505 | 1,621 | 1,878 | 2,040 2,152 | 2,124
Micklegate
(part of) @

Minster Yard with 21] 7or 882] 924 gol gIo | 1,108 944 779 670} 601 462
Bedern Extra

Par.
New Street and o2] —]| — = _ 40 24 22 14 13 8 2
Davy Gate, or
Davy Hall
Extra Par,
St. Andrew . 3 147 176 185 238 318 365 280 254 281 293 320
St Chix sg oo. 71 673 749 827 874 gio g20 905 846 822 625 521
St. Cuthbertt . .[ 292] 583 667 209 976 | 1,178 | 1,666 | 2,056 | 2,268 | 3,580 | 3,563 | 3,876
St. Denis-in-Walm- 14 1,314] 1,479 | 1,463 | 1,178 | 1,268 948 953
gate | 659 826 | 1,093 | 1,718 {
St.George . . . 14 1,024 | 2,095 | 2,218 | 2,116 | 2,277 | 2,076 | 2,212
St. Giles-in-the- 59] 545 | 726 | 881 | 1,052 | 1,258 | 2,059 | 2,241 | 2,552 | 2,727 | 2,807 | 2,831
Suburbs ¢
St. Helen-on-the- — _ _ 398 | 422) 444 398 436 462 = = =
Walls
St. Helen Stone- t 5} 655 698 678 707 | 607 551i 547 | 488 443 406 | 325
gate
St. John Delpike . 3] 338 423 367 350 351 386 428 349 312 296 193
St. John 7} 801 787 938 926 | 1,026 gis 872 787 699 57! 565
Micklegate }
St. Laurence 75 830 g81 | 1,380 | 1,913 | 2,361 | 3,009 | 2,979 | 3,132
__ (part of) | sae 519 | 799 {
St. Nicholas-in- 168 103 182 217 236 221 | 1,617 | 1,743 | 1,942
the-Suburbs
St. Margaret 16) 552 | 731 | 808 | 1,034 | 1,207 | 1,595 | 1,704 | 1,745 | 1,792 | 1,457 | 1,547
Walmgate
St. ea: ei 9] 600} 536| 610) 586} 513] 523] 460] 490] 393] 375] 307
ran

St. Martin Mickle- 12] 513 574 562 547 554 619 727 796 656 645 662
gate with St,
Gregory ¢

St. Mary Bishop-| 764] 428] 598 | 767 | 1,462 | 1,757 3:526 | 4,452 | 5,064 | 6,693 | 8,542 !11,141
hill Junior (part
Oo 82

St. Mary Bishop-} 212] 397 546 681 | 1,038 | 1,123 | 1,227 | 2,226 | 4,017 51323 | 7,738 | 8,395
hill Senior (part

of)
ot-Mary Castlegate] 271 777 1,029 | 989] 964| 952| 1,043] 994| 978] 659| 477] 538
St. Maurice-in-the- 98] 567 596 798 | 1,114 | 1,477 | 2,928 | 4,327 | 5,032 5,440 | 5,709 | 5,941

: Suburbs
St. Michael-le- 12] 1,269 | 1,153 | 1,343 | 1,350 | 1,238 | 1,115 | 939| 892] 937| 770] 655
Belfry ¢
St. Michael s| 6 6 6 8 8
eer 55 99 | 593 45 | 499} 585] 486] 440] 415] 345} 285
St. Peter-the-Little 2] 499 614 660 632 573 204 407 325 319 237 154

St. Peter-le-Wil- 4] 206 | Io 18
ee ee | 3 4 413 | 497| 588 | 526] 531 | 548| 478] 536
|

50 All Saints Peaseholme and St. Helen-on-the-Walls Pavishes—The areas of these two parishes and their population,
r8or, 1811, and 1381-1901, are included in those given for St. Cuthbert Parish,
8! Holy Triniz, Micklezate Parish is situated in the City and in the Ainsty of the City of York.
8la See note 28 above.
Sibore oe Bishophill Junior and St. Mary Bishophill Senior Parishes are situated in the City and in the Ainsty of the
rk.

500

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

PaRISH a r8or | 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 IgoI
CITY, AND AINSTY
OF THE CITY, OF
YORK (cont.)
City of York (cont.)
St. Sampson 5] 886 | 1,054 | 1,041 955 761 758 702 716 615 529 502
St. Saviour Nea 44] 636 | 784 | 987 | 1,455 | 2,100 | 2,538 | 2,554 | 2,576 | 2,751 | 2,097 | 2,252
ce)
St. Wilfrid :— 9} 392 313 359 | 443 356 319 262 252 254 228 231
Mint Yard 4 98 83 132 166 123 73 90 59 75 102 73
Liberty
Wilfrid Town- 5 294 230 227 277 233 246 172 193 179 126 158
ship
York Castle ee 7}, — _ _— — 255 174 267 170 168 92 125
ar.
Ainsty of the City
of York
Acaster Malbis**t | 1,874] 265 286 291 282 322 231 270 262 264 243 227
Acomb :— 2,453] 707 785 870 882 872 986 | 1,007 | 1,066 | 1,616 | 2,282 | 2,856
Acomb ts 1,587 587 655 733 762 774 874 897 963 | 1,512 | 2,181 | 2,754
ship
Knapton Town-| 872 120 130 137 120 98 112 110 103 104 107 102
ship

Askham Bryan ¢ .] 1,896] 295 332 397 341 342 350 362 290 303 267 255
Askham Richardt] 982] 170 199 249 234 232 229 235 238 232 212 197

Bilbroughf$ . .| 1,447] 185 235 260 228 216 252 216 207 199 172 192

Bilton ¢ :— 4,810] 737 763 808 894 881 848 926 892 948 go2 844

Bickerton Town-} 7,073 127 133 149 150 110 727 149 140 138 139 142
ship ¢

Bilton Town-} 7,923 220 ZiT 223 197 214 221 242 238 238 237 182
ship ¢

Tockwith Town-| 7,874 390 419 436 547 557 506 535 514 | 572 526 520
ship ¢ t

Bishopthorpe . .| 720] 218 262 301 445 404 406 452 417 422 426 439

Bolton Percy :— | 7,598] 827 972 | 1,054 993 040 | 1,134 | 1,118 976 856 842 920
Appleton Roe-| 2,974 406 514 585 538 564 638 622 477 441 393 468
buck Township
Bolton Percy 2,334 189 230 238 220 241 275 292 288 244 242 268

Township
Colton Town- 1,208 155 137 148 150 142 144 129 142 100 127 121
shi
Steeton Town- si 1,142 77 91 83 85 93 77 75 69 71 80 63
ship
Healaugh -| 2,771] 233 208 IgI 212 245 223 228 233 237 243 239
Holy Trinity
Micklegate
(part of) #44 :—
Dringhouses 779) 124| 154] 156] 194} 304] 342] 379] 381] 477| 647] 745
Township t é
Kirk Hammerton
(part of) ® :—
Wilstrop Town-| 1,080 92 85 95 112 86 82 go 88 80 76 65

ship
Long Marston t :—] 4,604] 614 | 607 579 584 649 | 609 586 | 560 530} 422 387
66 67 78 67 59 49 50 53 49

Angram Town- 521 77
ship
Hutton Wandes-| 7,233|( 275 |] 743 | 125 | 176] 125 | 1217 | 122 98 | 117 80 86
ley Township
Long Marston 2,850 399 387 388 407 446 421 405 413 363 289 252
Township
Moor Monk- 4323] 370] 406] 430] 484] 454] 421 | 381} 349] 340) 324] 305
ton ¢ f :—
Hessay Town- | 7,256| 774 | 146| 167] 170| 149| 147 127| 116 91 92 98
ship
Moor Monkton | 3,067] 256 | 260| 269| 314| 305} 280) 254) 233 | 249| 232| 207
Township +

Poppleton, Nether} } 1,278 250 217 254 259 243 255 262 228 293 290 267
Ruffortht . - .| 2,466] 273 | 273 | 295 | 302] 276| 209| 297| 297| 272| 246] 247

88 St. Saviour Parish is situated in the City of York and in the Bulmer Wapentake (North Riding).

54 A caster Malbis Pavish.—The 1841 population included thirty-nine visitors at annual feast.

844 See note 31 above. ae er

85 Kivk Hammerton Parish is situated in the Ainsty and also in the Claro Wapentake—U pper Division (West Riding).

501

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

|
ParisH 2 1801 1811 1821 1831 | 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 | 1891 1901

CITY, AND AINSTY
OF THE CITY, OF
YORK (cont.)

Ainsty of the City
of York \cont.)

St. Mary Bishop-] 3,363] 449] 623 710 709 800 865 875 g21 | 1,108 | 1,684 | 2,409
hill Junior

(part of) 4 t :—

Copmanthorpe 1,658 184 250 281 293 284 316 350 327 311 309 299

Chap. ¢

Holgate ieee 298 55 50 83 97 143 134 170 296 513 | 1,073 | 1,748
shi

Poppleton, oe 1,407 210 323 346 319 373 415 355 298 284 302 362

per Chap. f¢

St. Mary Bishop-

hill Senior

(part of) $53 :—

Middlethorpe 629 47 71 44 58 126 88 135 116 131 128 139

Township ® ¢
Stillingfleet (part

of) 3 :—

Acaster Selby 1,542] 178 IgI 188 201 188 184 154 127 115 160 94

Township

Tadcaster Jyote 1,930] 778 913 904 859 . 982 939 | 1,034 992 959 | 1,208 | 1,217

of) 87 :—

Catterton Town-}| 742 68 73 63 62 58 50 43 48 44 59 45

ship

Oxton Township] 660 49 65 66 60 57 55 71 62 46 51 38

Tadcaster, East, 578] 667 775 775 737 867 834 920 882 869 | 1,098 | 1,134

Township
Thorp Archtf{ .] 1,671] 314 328 343 316 326 315 388 368 393 319 384
Waltontt. . .P1447] 205 | 235) 247 | 237 | 254} 245} 221} 195) 194] 158] 199
Wighilf . . .f-2,2487 216 214 250 276 237 296 280 241 239 237 215
Acre-

1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901

age

Total of the City of |
York, together } — ]24)393 27,458 |30,607 35,362 |38,321 45,902 50,329 [53,240 [59,738 62,533 67,584

with the Ainsty | |

Ace: 2
ParisH a 1801 | 1811 1821 | 1831 | 1841 1851 | 1861 | 1871 1881 1891 Igo
NoRTH RIDING
Allertonshire
Wapentake
Birkby :— 3,751} 313 | 298) 261 275 256 | 243 298 | 272 2 2 251
Birkby sea _ | 7,203 91 85 = 90 96 74 80 37 50 3B 3 é7
ship i
Hutton lad 1,547 150 135 | 107 112 7171 108 129 129 114 95 108
ap. :
Smeaton, Little, ] 7,007 72 78, 64 67 71 55 82 73 75 70 82
Township
Cotcliffe Extra Par.J 133 — _ _ _ I 12 I Il
Hutton Conyers 3,212] 13 12 12 I ; 3 i é 3
Seu Ee 3 3 7 59 ; 190 190 158 172 136 168 194
Lazenby Ext = = _
nby ee 828 12, 31 12 25 23 44 31 33

85a See note 32 above.
86 Middlethorpe T ip.— ion i i

eee a diets The 1841 population included fifty-three strangers temporarily employed.
8° Tadcaster Parish is situated

The population of jee the Ainsty and in the Barkston Ash Wapentake—Upper Division (West Riding).

, 1801-1821, is probably included in that given for Northallerton Township.
502

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-
PaRISH age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 Igo1
NorTH RIDING
(cont.)
Allerionshire
Wapentake (cont.)
Leake oN s 4,892] 664 716 | 753 785 890 | 807] 800] 761 760 | 721 626
fe) —
Borrowby Town-| 924] 257 274 267 350 401 359 345 337 323 309 241
ship ¢
Crosby Town- | 832 39 32 39 37 37 29 38 35 40 38 41

ship

Knayton with 1,909] 327 347 377 336 404 376 368 350 344 323 295
Brawith Town-
ship

Landmoth with 798 46 55 59 53 41 31 32 27 42 45 43
Catto Township

LeakeTownship 429 7 8 17 9 7 12 17 12 17 6 6

Northallerton + :— [13,220] 3,633 | 3:727 | 4.43% | 5,406 | 5,242 | 5,238 | 4,980 | 5,212 5,636 | 5,712 | 6,050

alae t 3,844 994 | 1,012 | 1,223 | 1,570 | 1,535 | 1,497 | 1,398 | 1,364 | 1,295 | 1,245 | 1,352
ap.

Deighton Chap. | 2,037| 146] 125| 134 | 146 | 132 | 125| 1417 | 126) 114| 121 | 100
Northallerton | 3,653] 2,738 | 2,234 | 2,626 | 2,992 | 3,067 | 3,086 | 2,970 | 3,164 | 3,692 | 3,802 | 4,009

Township
Romanby ete 2,061 250 251 294 325 371 406 362 410 414 421 474
A} 1p
Worsall, Bs 1,625 105 105 154 133 143 130 109 148 121 123 115
hap. ¢
Osmotherley { :— | 7,619] 854 926 | 1,087 | 1,417 | 1,354 | 1,253 | 1,320 | 1,221 | 1,197 879 895
Ellerbeck Town-| 9877 78 76 81 79 81 87 84 8&2 72 74 67
ship
Harlsey, West, 1,504 79 8&2 51 66 72 64 61 70 65 56 54
Township
Osmotherley 3,197 534 578 755 | 1,087 | 1,029 935 995 937 920 637 665
Township
Thimbleby 2,053 163 190 200 185 172 167 180 132 140 112 109
Township
Otterington, North} 2,511] 231 252 291 280 345 328 306 285 289 288 261
(part of) #° :—
Otterington, 819 42 49 44 61 79 87 66 73 75 85 69
North, Town-
ship
Thornton-le- 1,692 189 203 247 219 266 247 240 212 214 203 192
BeansTownship

Pickhill (part
re) 41 —

Holme Township] 547 72 86 102 85 79 92 54 68 SI 47 62

Rounton, West t{ .] 1,458] 226 180 217 192 169 216 222 214 219 207 189

Sessay { :— 3.7731 3771 384| 493 | 464| 437] 473| 456] 441} 450) 4or| 391

Hutton Sessay 740 85 81 129 — 114 131 136 147 131 96 108
Township

Sessay Township] 3,033 292 303 364 a 323 342 320 300 325 305 283

Sigston Kirby ¢ :—] 3,419] 285 320 322 343 296 282 257 246 238 214 255
Sigston Kirby ] 7,243) 175 | 722 | 137 | 137) 121 | 127 | 110) 115 101 84| 138
Township
Sowerby under] 877 38 59 53 67 63 47 50 43 49 49 57
Cotcliffe
Township
Winton Town-| 7,365 132 139 138 145 112 108 97 88 88 81 60
ship
Smeaton, Great
(part of) 4? :—
Hornby Town-] 1,829] 228 211 238 262 278 253 229 221 258 203 196
shi
Sockburn (part 4 2,087} 131 163 151 141 159 175 172 154 169 181 150
of) #4 :—
GirsbyTownship| 7,227] 80 93 85 83 80 | 101 90 77 68 89 68
Over Dinsdale 860 57 70 66 58 79 74 &2 77 107 92 82
Township

39 Leake Parish is situated in Allertonshire and Birdforth Wapentakes.

89a See note 38 above.

40 North Otterington Parish is situated in Allertonshire and Birdforth Wapentakes.

41 Pickhill Parish is situated in Allertonshire and Hallikeld Wapentakes.

43 Gyeat Smeaton Parish is situated in Allertonshire and East Gilling Wapentakes. ae

48 Sockburn Pavish.—The remainder is in Durham (Stockton Ward—South-western Division).

593

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParisH a 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 | 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901

NORTH RIDING
(cont.)

Allertonshire
Wafentake (cont.)

Thornton - le - 2.324] 169] 193 199 | 226] 224 234 241 205 225 226 166
Street ¢ :—
Kilvington, | 935} 57| 66| 68| 64| 63| 63| 387] 72| 87} 80| 61
North, Township
Thornton - le - 1,389 112 127 137 162 167 971 154 133 138 146 105
Street Town-
ship

Wath (part of) #4 :—
Norton Conyers] 1,042 56 62 87 73 60 92 97 66 98 104 78
Chap.

Birdforth
Wapentake

Ampleforth (part
of) 45 -—

Ampleforth Bird- 566] 147 152 192 225 239 202 205 205 183 195 207
forth Township t¢

Byland, Old $ . .[ 2,738] 118} 126] 133] 163] 185} 150] 157] 164] 156] 149} 129
Cold Kirby . . .] 1,620] 158 194 185 185 182 179 193 176 164 143 127
Cowesby{ . . .} 1,165 67 93 gI 89 | 108 97 | 105 gl 97 95 74
Coxwold f¢ :— - [12,934] 1,099 | 1,352 | 1,447 | 1,380 | 1,076 | 1,086 | 1,205 | 1,139 | 1,072 | 1,038 940

Angram Grange 445 22 26 29 28 24 32 37 35 27 32 37

Township
Birdforth Chap. 629 32 41 42 35 44 49 40 41 42 50 49
Byland Abbey] 7,772 133 358 372 365 97 107 104 104 92 75 32

Township‘ t¢
Coxwold Town-| 7,375] 289 326 348 375 325 330 374 321 313 310 | 275
ship

Newburgh 2,315 148 109 162 104 117 85 138 188 147 138 141
Township “>
Oulston Town-] 7,575 212 228 225 215 200 197 214 172 177 168 150
ship
Thornton-on-the-] 7,448 71 78 70 67 78 94 97 92 92 75 72
Hill and Baxby

Township t
Wildon Grange 699 28 23 29 27 21 21 27 23 21 23 37
Township
Yearsley Town-] 2,796 164 163 170 164 176 171 180 163 167 167 159
ship
Cundall (part
rey 46 —_—
Fawdington S55) = | 39 48 40 40 35 33 23 20 29
_..__. Township
Feliskirk t:— . .] 8,448] 906 | 933 1,008 | git 931 goo | 878 840 825 753 722
Boltby irs : 4,712 344 363 403 342 320 295 316 317 304 256 269
_., Ship
Feliskirk xis 1,792 113 101 113 110 119 716 177 126 113 99 98
ship

Sutton under 1,909] 287 303 325 328 365 376 349 298 299 280 279
Whitestone

Clitfe Town-
: ship
Thirlby pe 635 168 166 167 131 127 113 702 99 109 118 76
ship
Harlsey, Eastt | 3,060] 361 | 305 | 420 436 | 393} 407| 430] 406] 379} 315] 340
Hawnby =. 416,795] 564 593 620 | 638 815 814 746 648 666 575 520
Arden with 4,526 128 127 139 167 137 148 129 109 122 96 93
Ardenside
Township

Bilsdale West- 2,922 715 128 127 149 168 163 162 152 148 145 115
side Township

Dale Town _ | 7,774 47 45 68 53 49 53 60 48 67 39 37
Township

ie Wath Parish is situated in the Allertonshire and Hallikeld Wapentakes.
‘8 Ampleforth Parish is situated in the Birdforth and Ryedale Wapentakes.
42 See note 48 below. 45> See note 50 below.

‘© Cundall Parish is situated in the Birdforth and Hallikeld Wapentakes. The population of Fawdington Townshi
was wrongly included in that of Bagby with Islebeck Township in ret and 1811. - =

504

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-

PaRISH age ror | x181r | 182r | 1831 | 1841 | 1851 | 186r 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | x901

NorTH RIDING
(cont.)
Birdforth
Wapentake (cont.)

Hawnby (conz.) :-—
Hawnby Town-| 2,427] 274 | 293| 286 | 275| 345| 326| 295| 249| 237| 207| 197

ship
Snilesworth, or] 5,752} — _— —_ —_ 116 124 700 90 104 88 84
Snilesby, Town-
ship
Hood Grange 312 21 49 30 23 25 —_ fe) I 10 10
Extra Par.” ; 3 2
Husthwaite f :— .| 2,497] 447] 475} 493] 539] §77| 613] 616| 641] 604| 4o7| 522
Carlton Husth- 820 159 153 169 163 177 184 170 177 168 149 153
waite Chap.
Husthwaite 1,677 288 322 324 376 406 429 446 470 436 348 369
Township t+ .
Kilbun*®}+. . .[ 5,520] 713 471 500 508 812 819 700 725 647 538 528
Kilburn Cai 2,809 468 471 500 508 537 537 434 425 387 33th 296
ship
Oldstead Town-] 7,384 114 _ _ — 125 127 113 123 122 93 80
ship
Thorpe - le -Wil- 471 ~_ _ _— 19 23 24 37 25 27 33
lows Township 131 |
WassTownship t| 856 —_ _ _ 137 132 129 146 113 87 119
sea ie 2,932] 370 357 405 414 402 389 360 400 | 414 358 383
outh ¢ :—
Kilvington, 7,083 229 232 260 279 277 278 233 265 267 209 248
South, Township
Thornbrough 562 39 28 27 21 27 27 23 23 29 19 18
Township

UpsallTownship| 7,287 102 97 118 114 98 84 104 112 124 130 117
Kirby Knowle tf .] 4,506] 448 | 539) 505} 5o7| 553] 554] 504] 457] 462] 419] 410
Bagby with Isle-] 7,979 213 253 242 289 317 337 302 282 279 262 243
“beck Town-
ship * +
Balk Township . 945 106 132 125 72 8&9 88 86 67 69 58 57
Kirby Knowle} 7,582 129 154 138 146 147 129 116 108 114 99 116
Township
Kirby Wiske (part
re) 49 —_—
Newsham with] 1,915] 167 154 173 182 181 I9I 184 158} 210] 188 183
Breckenbrough
Township
Leake (part of ¢:]1,886 | 441 300 330 304 330 354 292 258 257 239 232
GueldableTown-] 348 115 118 128 126 142 142 114 8&4 87 83 100
ship ¢
Silton, Nether, 1,538 326 182 202 178 188 212 178 174 176 156 132
Chap. ;
Murton Extra Par.*°] 1,754 4o| — _ = 31 33 34 39 27 32 32
Otterington, North
(part of) 4 :—
Thornton-le- 1,527] 261] 259] 294] 337| 343 | 339) 324} 311 | 335] 292) 323
MoorTownship

Otterington, 1,452] 144] 155 | 201] 241 | 326] 412] 353) 289] 349] 335] 298
South ft
Over Silton ¢ :— | 3,862 241 261 264 263 271 285 255 206 212 230 209
Kepwick Town- 2,627 167 169 170 152 173 179 161 143 168 188 160
ship f
Over Silton 1,235 74 92 94 177 98 106 94 63 44 42 49
: Township
Thirkleby with Os-]2,689 |] 281 293 293} 317| 309} 300] 299] 256] 261 254 | 211
godby f
Thirsk :— 8,772 | 3,156 | 3,289 | 3,775 | 4,104 | 4,599 | 4,704 | 4,815 | 5,187 | 5,772 | 5,747 | 5,834
Carlton Miniott, | 7°542 | '78 | ’203 | °'223 | ’asa | '373 | 7579 | Vara | 378 | 380 | 479 | 7426

or Carlton Isle-
beck, Chap.{

7 Hood Grange.—The 1851 population is included in that of Kilbuyn Township. ; :
48 Kilburn Pavish.—The populations of Oldstead, Thorpe-le- Willows, and Wass Townships, 1811-1831, were included

in those given for Byland Abbey Township. 48a See note 46 above.
* Kirby Wiske Parish is situated in Birdforth and East Gilling Wapentakes.
492 See note 39 above. 49b See note 40 above.

5° The population of Murton in 1821 and 1831 is included in that given for Newburgh Township.

o) 505 64

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParisH Aare? w8or | 181r | 182r | 1831 | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | Igor

age

NORTH RIDING
(cont.)

Birdforth
Wapentake (cont.)

Thirsk (cont.) :-—
Sand Ha 1,352 240 244 273 275 309 305 297 289 312 288 271
Chap.f

Sowerby Chant 2,618 639 685 748 756 957 | 1,079 | 1,248 | 1,540 | 1,743 | 1,876 | 2,044
Thirsk Town-| 3,250 | 2,092 | 2,155 | 2,533 | 2,835 | 3,020 | 3,007 | 2,956 | 3,040 | 3,337 | 3,164 | 3,093

ship ft
Topcliffe 8,137 979 | 1,084 | 1,181 | 1,135 | 1,390 | 1,345 | 1,279 | 1,247 | 1,213 | 1,086 | 1,022
art of)t § :—
a DNs 842 116 113 99 102 136 131 104 131 133 118 110
shi
Dalton are 1,263 86 215 235 252 327 288 307 271 249 204 208
shipt
Elmire with : 986 85 74 78 77 93 73 49 69 71 47 50
Crakehill
Township t¢
Skipton-upon- 844 103 109 170 114 128 143 143 150 145 124 110
Swale
Township
Topcliffe Town-] 4,202 589 573 659 590 706 710 676 626 615 593 544
ship t¢
Welburyt . . .[2,399 249 243 257 233 266 249 258 223 190 217 220
Bulmer
Wapentake
Alnet:— . . .]9,991 | 1,236 | 1,335 | 1,418 | 1,552 | 1,703 | 1,659 | 1,592 | 1,516 | 1,558 | 1,449 | 1,392
Aldwark Town- | 2,337 173 146 163 190 224 177 155 160 223 215 220
ship

Alne Township | 2,268 342 365 386 415 494 487 453 464 492 439 410
Flawith Town-] 607 87 107 | + 94 94 90 79 84 74 71 71 48

ship
Tholthorpe 1,775 188 187 238 265 300 303 280 232 202 194 171
Township
Tollerton Town- | 2,207 396 487 487 529 §21 551 547 541 512 491 504
ship
Youlton Town-] 803 50 55 56 59 74 68 73 45 58 39 39
ship
Barton-le-Street
(part of) & :—
Coneysthorpe 1,206} 120] 156} 160] 190] 170 165 IgI 221 185 175 155
Township
Bossal] :— 9,640 752 892 | 1,092 | 1,100 | 1,242 | 1,173 | 1,075 | 1,114 | 1,128 1,058 | 1,032
Buttercrambe 74 165 235 176 175 154 126
Township
Bossall 2,69 5o| 31| 76] 77| 72] 62)¢ 768) 777) 169) 203
Township 127
Claxton Chap.| 838 93 135 163 168 207 195 243 210 216 190

Flaxton-on-the- | 7,865 227 245 299 355 412 381 367 352 366 325 321
Moor Town-

ship ft

Harton ee 2,004 154 165 190 169 186 164 125 147 136 123 115
ship

Sand Hutton 2,242 170 174 202 167 224 195 200 210 245 225 203
Township

Brafferton 3,744 | 681 683 789 | 825 824 822 838 905 881 820 | 748
(part of) 8 :-—

BraffertonTown- | 7,849 133 164 178 152 179 202 199 239 242 255 246

ship
Helperby Town-| 7,895 548 519 677 673 645 620 639 666 639 565 502

ship
Brandsbyt. . ./3,078] 199] 208] 277] 298] 304] 310 284 | 273| 300] 296} 301
Bulmer :— 4,261 754 721 850 gol 983 | 1,022 | 1,077 | 1,042 923 802 703
Bulmer oe 1,666 295 293 339 360 324 364 345 299 231 214 187
ship

51 Topcliffe Parish is situated in Birdforthand Hallikeld Wapentakes.
53 Barton-le-Street Parish is situated in Bulmer and Ryedale Wapentakes.
58 Brafferton Parish is situated in Bulmer and Hallikeld Wapentakes.

506

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—I9g01 (continued)

Acre-
PARISH ave 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 Igor

NortH RIDING
(cont.)

Bulmer
Wapentake (cont.)

Bulmer (coni.) :—
Henderskelfe 1,708 137 137 159 150 157 148 157 162 132 708 99

Township

Welburn i, 887] 322 291 352 397 502 510 575 587 560 480 417
ship

Crambe :-— 3:795} 454) 475) 522) 573] 610/ 617/ sor] 534] 6or| 557 504

Barton-le-Wil- 1,046 149 175 188 202 207 238 225 207 250 207 222
lows Town-
ship

Crambe peta 1,170 139 138 152 144 197 174 165 139 148 137 111
ship

Whitwell-on-the | 7,579 166 162 182 227 2712 205 201 188 203 213 171
Hil Town-
ship f
Crayket. . . -[ 2,876] 404} 453] 538] 607] 579] 608 585 | 521 | sor} 437] 407
Dalby with Skews-] 1,347] 123 129 169 155 14! 142 149 185 133 139 135
byt

Easingwold :— 11,278] 1,805 | 1,959 | 2,352 | 2,381 2,719 | 2,717 | 2,724 | 2,666 | 2,522 | 2,421 | 2,392
Easingwold 6,997 | 1,467 | 1,576 | 1,912 | 1,922 | 2,177 | 2,240 | 2,147 | 2,153.| 2,044 1,932 | 1,945
Township {
Raskelf Chap.» | 4,287 338 383 440 459 548 477 577 513 478 489 447
Foston { :— 1,876] 221 | 227 | 264] 283] 312] 377] 355 353 373 | 365] 315
Foston Town- 922 75 70 97 78 95 177 85 98 99 83 79
ship ¢
Thornton-le- 954 146 157 173 205 217 266 270 255 274 282 236
Clay Town-

ship ¢
Gate Helmsley ®t] 497] 151 212 209 243 306 293 200 218 204 194 17I
Haxbyt . . . «| 2,206] 325 | 395] 417| 412] 457! 527] 597] 603 559| 619] ir
Helmsley, Up-]| 833 47 46 63 66 68 78 78 71 71 64 74

per j
Holtbyt. . . . gor] 117 163 170 157 146 169 165 14! 136 127 152
Hovingham
(part of) 57 :— F
Scackleton 1,353] 130 144 171 164 189 IgI 175 172 165 158 125
Township
Huntington :— 4,844] 428 442 517 | 626 652 666 671 705 789 | 950} 1,151
Earswick Town- 751 48 67 113 66 95 83 97 126 148 113 108
shi
Huntington : 3,018 312 338 346 490 490 539 529 529 592 635 639
Township
Towthorpe 1,075 68 43 58 70 67 44 45 50 49 202 404
Township
Huttons Ambo t | 2,899] 390] 374| 445| 412] 408] 438] 444] 420] 415 | 392 376
Marton-in-the- 2,715] 208 179 164 202 173 182 168 166 144 161 145
Forest ¢
Myton-upon- 1,672] 126] 125} 185] 147] 188] 214] 155| 247| 189| 185] 165
Swale
N pga Se : 5,148] 668] 804 862 | 844] 908] 947]! 931] 971 962 | 834 730
use f :—
Bede aenneh 1,093] 84 98 99 93 86 86 88 84 74 61 78
Township
Linton-upon- 2,322] 246 291 268 258 299 273 253 261 296 256 231
Ouse Town-
ship

N ewton-upon- 1,733 338 415 495 493 523 588 590 626 592 517 421
Ouse Town-

ship
Osbaldwick ¢:— | 1,57, 233 | 263] 310] 319] 361 372 | 342} 366] 340] 379] 398
Murton Chap. . Bi 710 128 134 156 167 167 154 168 176 198
Osbaldwick 730 123 135 176 163 200 205 188 198 164 781 209

Township

4 Welburn Toumship includes the formerly Extra Parochial Place of Hardy Flatts. In 1841 fifty-six strangers were

visiting Kirkham Fair. . .
5S Raskelf Chapelry.—The 1841 population included a number of Great Northern Railway labourers temporarily
Present, and in 1861 some labourers engaged in drainage works were present.
°° Gate Helmsley Parish—A lunatic asylum here was discontinued between 1851 and 1861.
57 Hovingham Parish is situated in Bulmer and Ryedale Wapentakes.

597

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParisH al 1801 | 1811 1821 1831 | 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 Igor
NORTH RIDING
(cont.)
Bulmer
Wapentake (cont.)
Overton :— 3342] 385 420 | 436] 413 486 | 461 508 | 491 497 491 392
Overton 7,331 44 56 59 49 68 45 68 56 67 49 57
Township
Shipton 2,071 347 364 377 364 418 416 440 435 430 442 335
Township
Sheriff 10,401} 1,051 | 1,127 | 1,278 | 1,371 | 1,499 | 1,530 | 1,397 | 1,321 | 1,294 | 1,242 | 1,076
Hutton ¢ :—
Cornbrough 1,104 61 63 63 59 63 53 54 54 _— _— _
Township
Farlington 1,224 174 169 170 152 187 176 174 186 168 159 132
Chap. ¢
Lillings Ambo 1,769 142 149 208 197 208 219 196 176 217 207 178
Township
Sheriff Hutton 4,628) 597 664 756 877 955 994 892 816 819 795 696
Township *
Stittenham 1,676 77 82 871 86 92 88 87 89 90 871 70
Township ,
Skelton -| 2,473] 203 286 273 291 367 347 316 350 313 279 274
Stillington ¢ -7 2,157) 531 681 698 717 748 788 738 675 600 490 499
seeusnaias Seo 3,208] 255 263 357 319 389 | 475 449 424 | 446] 407] 403
orest J}
Strensall . - +[ 2,909; 297] 424] 378| 398) 430] 434] 406] 478} 446) 470] 581
pian tere 10,656] 842 891 940 | 1,019 | 1,123 | 1,146 | 1,224 | 1,157 | 1,070 986 889
orest ¢t [ :—
Huby Township] 4,659] 393 434 497 526 556 528 572 512 494 456 400
Sutton-on-the
Forest Town-] 5,997] 449 457 443 493 567 618 652 645 576 530 489
. ship ¢
Terrington t:— | 3,953] 564) 641] 723] 759] 732] 753] 833] 733] 685] 668] 472
Ganthorpe 731 107 96 106 110 718 112 7109 113 123 76 51
Township
Terrington and } 3,222 463 545 617 649 614 647 724 620 562 592 421
Wigganthorpe
Township
Thormanby f . 1,002} 131 135 118 133 138 154 147 136 135 119 113
Warthill ¢ :— 1,004 115 129 153 162 159 169 217 192 190 171 181
be Copy- 623 — 95 115 127 117 117 190 167 158 138 147
old Town-
ship
Woe Free- 387 = 34 38 35 42 52 27 25 32 33 34
hold Town-
ship
Whenby ¢ . . | Tjo4r 87 Ior 129 115 124 128 109 123 III 97 88
Wigginton ft. 1,880] 260 286 309 359 | 392 374 349 371 399 | 366] 340
eee 2,371] 1,062 | 1,093 | 1,192 | 1,394 | 1,979 | 2,988 | 3,740 | 4,561 | 7,240 | 9,074 (14,388
of) :—
nae i 7,582} 383 406 469 715 | 1,242 | 2,263 | 2,659 | 3,296 6,037 | 7,770 |12,313
Township
Raval 2 739| 73 61 57 54 76 48 | 115 | 123 89 | 236| 310
owns Ip
es Mary- 50} 606 626 666 625 661 677 966 | 1,142 | 1,114 | 1,068 | 1,765
own-
ship
York St. Saviour
(part of ) §8a ;—
Heworth enin| vats] 82] too] 146} 268] 395] 399] 437] 610] 746] 740] 829
Township
Gilling, East,
Wapentake
sii 4696] 587} 593 | 768] 806] 760] 845| 848) 784] 719 635 | 581
Ainderby Steeple 1,158 207 220 266 302 262 323 3719 287 222 224 241
Township

58 Sheriff Hutton Township.—The population includes that of Cornbrough Township, 1881-1901.

508

58a See note 33 above.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued.

Acre-
ParIsH age rBor | r8rr | 182r | 183r | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | rgor
NorTH RIDING
(cont.)
Gilling, East,
Wapentake (cont.)
Ainderby Steeple
(cont.):—
Morton-upon- 1,542 184 202 240 258 252 263 286 259 273 225 186
Swale Town-
ship
Thrintoft : 1,228 136 102 165 170 164 168 162 145 146 107 117
Township f¢ ;
Warlaby : 768 60 69 97 76 82 91 81 93 78 79 43
Township
Barton :— 3,085] sor | 446) 467) 499| Gor] 536] 54o| 556] Sor] 473 6
Barton : 2,451 467 414 436 468 567 508 507 520 515 410 ie
Township
Newton Morrell 634 40 32 37 31 34 28 33 36 76 63 48
: Township
Catterick 8,138] 895 851 987 963 958 964 960 838 825 923 868
(part of ) §° :—
Bolton-upon- 861 93 76 100 85 96 8&2 105 85 77 84 92
Swale Chap.
Ellerton-upon- 1,626 116 117 140 147 152 144 153 162 172 149 115
Swale Town-
ship
Kiplin Township} 7,025 95 94 100 103 114 117 114 83 80 93 100
Scorton . 2,733 439 449 496 492 477 488 476 412 407 515 465
Township ¢
Uckerby 779 75 50 52 50 40 61 56 32 38 39 35
Township t¢
Whitwell 1,114 77 71 99 86 79 72 56 64 57 43 67
Township
Cleasby tf . 1,205] 123 124 147 162 188 197 189 175 178 136 154
Cowton, East ¢ 3370] 323 | 302] 338| 374] 454} 461 | 472} 380] 387] 394] 351
Croft f :— 7,267) 543 563 648 | 692 758 784 805 792 | 781 720 | 666
~ Croft 4,633 330 339 368 375 422 430 442 479 443 387 385
Township f¢
Dalton-upon-
Tees Town- 1,636 124 131 167 196 219 218 217 174 187 187 165
ship
Stapleton 998 89 93 113 121 117 136 152 139 151 146 116
Township ¢
Danby Wiske tt | 4,714] 427| 402| 477) 508] 546} 554] 557] 485] 476] 453) 444
Danby Wiske 3,364 302 273 328 343 368 359 353 309 287 302 277
Township
Yafforth Chap.¢] 7,350] 725 | 129| 149 | 165 | 178] 195 | 204| 176| 189) 157 | 167
Easby (part of) ® :—]
Brompton-upon-| 1,700] 4or | 379| 388| 455 | 399| 425 | 406| 344) 360) 435 | 361
Swale Township
Gilling (part of): 5,977] 587| 613 | 595 | 599| 637] 672] 655] 572| 579] 586| 611
Cowton, North, } 7,397 282 322 270 264 273 312 312 269 283 256 268
Township
Cowton, South,| 2,240 142 152 148 163 152 165 167 144 117 163 184
Chap.
EryholmeChap.}, 2,340 163 139 177 172 212 195 176 159 185 167 159
Kirby bie (part 4,085] 635 686 | 668) 690| 724] 888] 682] 626] 644] 562] 577
0 —
Kirby Wiske] 7,708 150 215 197 205 210 282 209 249 223 2711 205
Township
Maunby Town- | 7,548] 244 207 206 231 283 337 250 203 205 164 154
ship
Newby Wiske] 7,429 241 264 265 254 231 269 223 174 216 187 218
Township
tone - upon - | 1,877] 168] I50] 202] 230] 252] 271 239 | 221] 229} 168) 202
wale ¢ f:—
Langton, Great,} 877 107 98 116 133 160 153 137 132 133 99 103
Township
Langton, Little,| 7,006] 67 52 86 97 92| 118| 102 89 96 69 99
Township ¢

59 Cattevick Parish is situated in East Gilling, East Hang, and West Hang Wapentakes.
60 Easby Parish is situated in East and West Gilling Wapentakes.
© Gilling Parish issituated in East and West Gilling Wapentakes.

5°9

6la See note 49 above.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-

PaRIsH age i801 | 1811 | 182x | 1831 | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 31891 | 1901
NorTH RIDING
(cont.)
Gilling, East,
Wapentake (cont.)
Manfield (part
of) & :—
Manfield Town-] 2,920] 229 352 440 423 420 372 351 341 276 237 278
ship
Middleton 6,243] 700} 685 | 805] 811] 795] 728] 775} 829] 813| 709] 634
Tyas f :-—
Middleton Tyas | 3,203] 526 506 569 6271 586 507 531 548 540 474 419
Township
Moulton Town- | 3,040 174 179 236 190 209 227 244 281 273 235 215
ship
Smeaton, Great
(part of) % :—
ae Se ele 1,648] 230] 218 250] 248] 255 232 | 232 256 | 286} 242] 258
‘ownship
Gilling, West,
Wapentake
Arkengarthdale { |14,577] 1,186 | 1,529 | 1,512 | 1,446 | 1,243 | 1,283 | 1,147 | 1,018 999 761 427
Barningham :— = J11,293] 42 510} 564} 550} 484] 472] 443] 408} 393] 332] 350
Barningham 3,522 32 350 384 396 337 333 307 296 261 218 227
Township
Hope Township] 2,594] — 43 44 35 47 40 43 22 26 26 29
Scargill Town- | 5,777 104 117 136 119 106 99 93 90 106 8&8 94
ship
Bowes ¢ ft :— 19,437] 815 | 866 | 1,270} 997| 850] 725] 849] 777] 780| 737] 659
Bowes Toe 16,958} 670 773 | 1,095 899 763 645 769 680 672 652 578
ship +
ee fe 2,479 145 93 175 98 87 80 80 97 708 85 87
ownship
Brignallt . . .f 2,121] 205 189 216 232 190 173 193 176 131 131 133
Easby (part of) ™ : | 3,881] 292 | 343 | 377] 367| 372] 438{ 438| 436] 403] 440] 424
Aske Township] 7,765 73 83 109 105 92 127 140 167 217 145 164
Easby Township] 7,287 85 113 105 79 105 114 178 119 123 147 114
Skeeby ace 835 134 147 163 183 175 203 7180 150 159 148 146
ship
Forcett t :-— 5,938] 723 607 574 636 656 817 776 g05 908 824 752
Barforth ee 2,027 142 126 147 128 114 170 167 165 135 145 101
ship
Carkin Se 664 55 47 24 46 55 65 55 84 _ _ _
ship
Eppleby Ge 1,120 168 158 157 206 205 263 245 3771 417 366 353
ship
Forcett Se a 1,606] 207 128 86 92 123 146 167 144 206 187 182
: ship
is eae or 527 157 148 166 164 159 173 142 147 150 132 116
vingham
Township
Gilling (part of)
Gilling ae : 4,879} 809} 795| 921 | 899] 981] 987] 899| 831] 872] 754] 736
Grinton bee __ #39892] 3,521 | 4,319 | 4,611 | 4,158 | 4,217 | 4,326 | 3,926 | 3,427 | 2,290 | 1,882 | 1,616
Melbecks es 7,986 | 1,274 | 1,586 1,726 | 1,455 | 1,633 1,667 | 1,622 | 1,437 | 1,165 600 497
ip
Muker_ Chap. t 130,205} 1,779 | 1,339 | 1,425 1,247 | 1,241 | 1,321 | 1,005 | 913| 837| 615 | 549
gore Township] 5,707 7,128 | 1,394 | 1,460 7,456 | 1,343 | 1,344 7,299 | 1,077 988 667 570
D aaaee POT 284 288] 317] 319] 297 266 | 266] 259] 258] 230] 193
Pace Marie 1,303) 178) 226| 248| 225| 209| 189! 184| 193| 7182| 164| 130
wnship
Layton, West, 746) 56 62 69 94 88 77 82 66 76 66 63
Township t+

62 Manfield Parish is sit
62> See note 60 above.

68a See note 61 above.

6 Forcett Township.
4 Grinton Parish is

uated in East and West Gilling Wapentakes.
—The population includes Carkin Township, 1881-1901.
situated in West Gilling and West Hang Wapentakes.

510

6% See note 42 above.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued )

AGO 26 srr | 18 8
PARISH age OI I 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 | 1871 1881 1891 IQOI
NorTH RIDING
(cont.)
Gilling, West,
Wapentake (cont.)
Kirkby aa 15,406] 1,504 | 1,480 | 1,685 | 1,727 | 1,567 | 1,507 | 1,331 | 1,242 | 1,107} 970 | 927
wort id

DaltonTownship} 2,708} 230 | 237| 265| 308] 233| 265| 222| 196| 206| 1571 150

Gayles a . 2,574 190 224 218 223 186 178 197 160 125 109 109

ship

Kirkby-on-the- 227) 143 | 137 | 167| 1781 109 96 8&8 | 101 81 76 69

Hill Townshipt
New Forest 3,003 68 74 73 73 73 67 53 51 49 36 28

Township
Newsham 3,417 491 403 511 546 457 434 366 353 275 211 215

Township
Ravensworth 2,248 269 290 317 300 332 327 257 217 268 277 250

Township t
baa e 1,235 113 121 140 159 133 140 148 164 103 104 106

ship
Manfield (part

of)*3 :—

Cliffe Township] 708 46 64 53 68 54 63 54 75 72 55 55
Marrick ft . . .| 6,206] 474 499 621 659 648 555 462 412 307 246 178
Marskef~ . . .| 6,759] 239 247 290 290 274 244 263 234 268 222 166
Melsonby . . «| 2,742] 338) 377| 440] 514] 530] 559] 471 | 599] 532] 4o9| 540
Rokeby®t. . .f 1,161] 185 201 222 211 162 189 ISI 157 196 163 179
Romaldkirk ¢ :— [54,578] 2,302 | 2,343 | 2,461 | 2,507 | 2,429 | 2,599 | 2,714 | 2,670 | 2,690 | 3,070 | 2,584

Cotherstone 8,200) 636 688 706 631 566 607 561 583 638 940 665

Township
Holwick 5,788 196 182 201 208 205 237 253 232 231 237 193
Township t
Hunderthwaite 6,336 334 320 313 297 280 239 304 302 285 440 282
Township t¢
Lartington 5,417 223 231 243 183 188 185 192 790 206 175 236
Township
Lunedale 122,770] 307 283 265 308 339 321 389 400 385 388 379
Township +
Mickleton 4,749) 330 337 356 500 513 653 688 651 667 634 602
Township t
Romaldkirk 1,324 276 302 377 380 338 357 327 312 278 256 227
Township t
pasa ey 5867] 817] 784] 928) 955] 907] 959] 768) 827} 787] 764] 737
ohn f :—

Aldbrough 7,807] 467 443 544 522 544 546 420 459 400 369 339

Township
Caldwell 1,590 187 170 188 204 209 190 162 199 175 155 147

Township
Layton, East, 1,072 95 120 137 156 117 132 133 123 156 128 136

Township ¢

Stanwick St. 7,398 80 51 59 73 37 91 53 46 56 112 115

John Township
Startforth+ ¢{:— | 2,907] 464] 741] 628] 780] 782] 828} 802] 711] 730| 731] 637

Boldron 1,250 128 172 168 148 169 171 178 172 152 136 144

Township ft
EgglestoneAbbey] 649 — —_ — — 77 75 59 44 62 60 39
Township
Startforth 71,008| 336 569 460 632 536 582 565 495 516 535 454
Township
Wycliffe¢ . -| 2,229] 138 140 152 156 165 144 162 185 175 164 120
Aallikeld
Wapentake
Aldborough
(part of) 6;—
Ellingthorpe 611 _ _ —_ — 49 52 45 38 68 59 51
Township

64a See note 62 above.

‘ 65 Hawily Parish.—Part of Startforth Parish, viz., Egglestone Abbey Township, wrongly returned with this Parish
1801-1831.

°° Aldborough Parish is situated in Hallikeld Wapentake (North Riding), and in Claro Wapentake (West Riding)—
Upper and Lower Divisions.

= 511

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued )

ParRisH pat 1801 w81r | 1821 | 1831 1841 | 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 Igor
NorTH RIDING
(cont.)
Hallikeld
Wapentake (cont.)
Bedale
(part of) 7:—
Langthorne 836] 104 132 135 136 115 145 147 125 127 104 Iol
Township
Brafferton
(part of)? :—
Thornton Bridge] 1,091 33 46 43 47 49 61 66 89 55 55 48
Township
Burneston :— 7,624) 1,302 | 1,247 | 1,326 | 1,430 | 1.494 | 1,635 | 11554 | 1,416 | 1,367 1,289 | 1,211
Burneston 1,227 280 253 288 342 357 374 290 287 253 238 241
Township
Carthorpe 2,113] 350 317 301 304 314 321 347 341 325 310 284
Township
Exelby, Leeming,| 2,440] 532 | 553 562 | 633 682 783 780 676 690 655 | 568
and Newton
Township
Gatenby 875 67 65 88 69 69 8&2 80 68 57 40 43
Township
Theakston 969 73 65 87 82 78 75 57 44 48 46 75
Township
Cundall shan 3144] 314 319 | 312| 346 338 349 357 293 278 249 | 204
0 —
Cundall 2,052 204 180 170 200 188 191 213 182 178 158 133
and Leckby
Township
Norton-le-Clay 1,092 110 139 142 146 150 158 144 117 100 91 71
Townsnip
Kirby-on-the- 4,056] 384 440 | 476 573 688 648 575 589 652 623 592
Moor, or Kirby
Hill:
Humburton with | 7,878 130 156 143 188 182 186 165 148 153 169 165
Milby Town-
ship
Kirby-on-the- 1,213 140 177 190 189 202 185 158 165 158 125 119
Moor Town-
ship
Langthorpe 1,025 114 107 143 196 304 277 252 276 341 329 308
Township
Kirklington t -— | 4,165] 409] 453) 491 | 486] 486) 553] 471 | 442 | 414 | 441) 437
Kirklington with ] 7,987 273 309 337 305 324 399 371 292 249 258 255
Upsland
Township
Sutton Howgrave 883 110 116 122 146 124 117 122 116 124 129 110
Township
Tanfield, East, 1,295 26 28 32 35 38 37 38 34 41 54 72
Township
Pickhill (part of) |] 4,563] 594 | 586| 584 | 648] 617) 685) 729| 613 | 607) 541 | 499
Ainderby Quern-] 532 78 86 99 107 92 107 99 128 116 88 74
how Township
Howe Township 402 24 31 32 33 35 44 36 32 49 43 31
Pickhill with 2,189] 375| 352| 334| 388| 356) 392| 416| 308| 282| 252) 231
Roxby Town-
ship
Sinderby bee 559| 77 75 86 93| 103| 178| 126| 117| 114) 120} 117
ship
Swainby with gst} 40| 42] 33) 27 37 24 52| 28] 46) 38] 46
Allerthorpe
Township
Tanfield, West t .] 3,285] 639] 670] 709] 693] 696! 628] 623] 504] 547| 521 | 527
aaa 8,032] 1,250 | 1,249 | 1,359 | 1,457 | 1,574 | 1,452 | 1,521 | 1,422 | 1,326 | 1,323 | 1,197
Asenby re 1,179] 215 188 230 238 261 207 202 185 171 177 173
ship
Baldersby ; 1,831 247 207 241 267 296 275 333 296 290 285 239
__ Township |
gucaas . 1,765 297 323 340 332 , 363 355 401 359 302 314 315
ap. t i

Sia See note 53 above.

67> See note 46 above.

512

°7 Bedale Parish is situated in Hallikeld and East Hang Wapentakes.
7c See note 41 above.

674 See note 51 above.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-

ParIsH age r8or | 18x | r82r | 183r | 184r | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | 1Ig01

NoRTH RIDING
(cont.)

Hallikeld
W apentake (cont.)

Topcliffe (part of)
(cont.) :—
Marton-le-Moor 1,679) 166| 189| 201 | 209| 212] 203) 205| 7181| 169| 192| 164
ap.

Rainton cum 1,578] 337 342 347 411 442 412 380 401 394 355 306
Newby Town-
ship
Wath (part of)® :—] 2,669] 484] 510) 546] 657 649 | 655} 621 569 | 641 581 | 547
Melmerby Chap. | 7,739 229 226 258 338 322 323 285 280 305 252 243
MiddletonQuern-]| 763 87 91 102 123 119 134 129 104 83 109 103
how Chap.

Wath Township] 767 168 193 186 196 208 198 207 185 253 220 201

Hang, East,
Wapentake
Bedale (part of)®:] 7,720] 2,155 | 2,280 | 2,496 | 2,571 2,688 | 2,747 | 2,713 | 2,688 | 2,560 | 2,628 | 2,534
Aiskew 2,036 500 577 620 586 658 720 759 882 831 847 833
Township
Bedale 1,683 | 1,005 | 1,078 | 1,137 1,250 | 1,200 | 1,157 | 1,026 | 7,046 | 1,090 | 1,082
Township 1,266
Firby Township] 685 73 52 76 54 68 82 74 84 95 80

Burrill cum Cow- | 7,077 104 120 113 139 138 150 1711 135 100 123 118

ling Township
Crakehall 1,886 460 576 590 583 557 484 444 396
Township
RantGrange | aco) 73 | 2 | 227] 989) ga) go) gh) oe | at) 8] a8
Hamlet
Catterick 11,967] 1,556 | 1,496 | 1,596 | 1,812 | 1,741 | 1,805 1,728 | 1,724 | 1,664 | 1,570 | 1,393
(part of > f :

Appleton, East | 7,632 95 89 87 83 97 114 115 104 104 106 116
and West,

Township
Brough 1,180 86 97 90 78 ss | 120| 128} 707| 120) 105 | 111
Township
Catterick 1,732) 647| 547 | 567) 683) 600| 640| 623) 666) 650) 681) 546
Township
Colburn 1,360) 138| 139| 133| 163 | 142| 122) 142| 134) 102 97 86
Township
Hipswell 2,647) 256| 266| 296| 293| 305 |) 293} 260) 259| 269 208 | 192
Township® +
Killerby 725 56 53 48 62 62 54 56 51 59 41 41
Township
Scotton 1,406) 70 98 | 128| 138 | 139| 134] 117 | 120| 116 | 1173) 107
Township
Tunstall 1,285) 214| 213 | 253| 312| 314| 328| 293 | 289) 244 219 | 194
eciife age 6 6 5 | 321 | 289] 347
Olaby:t = 882] 31 2 I 364 | 309 | 334) 360} 32 I
Ainderby Myers Paral ash ad v2 oa) eel BON SF) Ge We] FPL Se
with Holtby
Township
Hackforth 1,337| 135| 148| 134 | 142| 140 | 145 | 167 158 | 158| 121 | 144
Township ; 7
Hornby 1,592] 117 | 154 | 102| 132 87 99 96 98 90 91 | 122
Township ms
Kirkby Fleethamt | 3,148] 443 | 480| 566] 625 | 657 | 605 606 | 475 | 552} 565 | 579
Masham + :— 17,018 2,430 | 2,401 | 2,767 | 2,995 | 2,974 | 2695 | 2438 | 2.209 | 2174 | 21173 1,955
Common Lands | 260 = = Be ss ox ie = = sae oe =
Durlal spon 2,289| 217| 164| 170| 254| 200| 132) 120 118 | 152| 129 | 128
te Townshi
Ellingstring ut 430| 123| 139| 204| 228| 196| 207| 164 | 105) 116 115 | 109
Townshi
Ellingtons Bt 1,797| 117| 123| 152| 148 | 130) 144 114.| 115 39 | 100 87
Townshi
Fearby Br 397) 205 | 216| 214| 249| 237| 251) 242 216| 222| 228) 187

Township t
Healey and Sut-| 4,993] 354| 354| 473| 400| 442| 378) 317) 270 244.| 209| 184

ton Township t¢ |

68¢ See note 69 below.

68 See note 44 above. 68 See note 67 above. 68> See note 5¢ above.

3 513

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParIsH poe 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1gor

NORTH RIDING
(cont.)

Hang, East,
Wapentake (cont.)

Masham
(cont.) :—

Ilton with Pott | 2,370] 224 209 266 233 237 245 200 152 128 150 91
Township ¢

Masham 2,347| 1,022 | 1,074 | 1,177 | 1,276 | 1,318 | 1,139 | 1,079 | 1,062 | 1,077 | 1,066 | 995
Township ¢

Swinton with 1,707 174 182 177 207 214 205 202 171 152 176 174
Warthermaske

Township t¢

Patrick Brompton 3:7731 446 482 472 516 596 615 669 591 578 712 566
(part of) °4 :—

dee thorne 672 67 74 64 59 81 69 76 71 62 71 41
Township

Newton-le-Wil- | 7,867] 276 266 250 269 334 355 388 333 338 478 400

lows Township
Patrick Bromp- | 7,240 163 142 158 188 181 191 205 187 178 163 125

ton Township

St. Martin 270 —_ —_ _ — 8 57 53 53 79 69 67
Extra Par.
Scrutonf . . .J 2,113] 379 374 411 438 410 465 408 389 359 383 277
Thornton Wat- 3,712] 407 369 432 448 471 421 440 388 426 374 358
lass { :—
tens 595 ies 38 50 43 39 44 43 54 64 57 62
Ure Township
Rookwith 996 92 73 76 78 91 62 49 55 53 39 45
Township

Thirn Township 639 31 98 126 142 138 127 142 102 126 97 87
Thornton Wat- | 7,482 184 160 180 185 203 188 206 177 183 181 164
lass Township
Well t :-— 6,689} 1,047 948 | 1,059 | 1,062 | 1,090 | 1,044 963 848 791 823 713
i = 679 616 689 656 729 670 592 491 469 474 434

Township t¢
Well Townshipt —| 368 332 370 406 361 374 371 357 322 349 279

Hang, West,
Wapentake

Aysgarth f :— 81,011] 5,205 | 5,170 | 5,621 | 5,796 | 5,725 | 5,635 | 5:649 | 5.473 | 5.482 | 4,736 | 4,506
Common Lands]717,309 — —_ _ _ _— —_ _ _— —_ _—
Abbotside, High,| 6,379] 559| 585 | 641) 589} 574| 588| 552| 576| 493| 412| 387

Township t¢
Abbotside, Low, | 2,036] 235 195 181 173 166 167 163 142 130 143 740
Township t
Askrigg Chap. t] 4,907] 767 745 765 737 726 633 668 607 624 552 462
Aysgarth _ | 1214] 268 293 293 332 269 253 283 230 370 235 273
__ Township
Bainbridge 15,399) 785 813 872 881 786 814 807 771 683 595 568
_. Township t
Bishopdale 4,733 84 79 95 108 107 77 87 80 87 91 80
Township
Burton cum 7,607) 446 453 478 545 523 483 478 420 444 409 351
Walden
Township ¢

Carperby cum 4,914] 280 262 283 320 354 342 345 263 298 244 232
Thoresby

Township

Hawes Chap. ¢ |76,021| 1,223 | 1,185 | 1,408 | 1,559 | 1,611 | 1,708 | 1,727 | 1,843 | 1,890 | 1,615 | 1,586

Newbiggin : 1,697 121 130 128 122 132 130 127 113 104 101 95
Township ¢

Thoralby : 2,914] 313 310 342 272 299 288 271 285 216 218 228
Township t

Thornton Rust | 7,947 130 120 135 158 178 158 147 143 143 121 110
Township

68d Patrick Brompton Parish is situated in East and West Hang Wapentakes.
69 The population of St. Martin 1801-1831 was included in that of Hipswell Township.

514

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-
PaRISH age r8or | 1811 | 182r | 1831 | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | r901
NoRTH RIDING
(cont.)
Hang, West,
Wapentake (cont.)
Catterick
art of) 8% :—
Hudswell Chap.t] 3,028] 227 253 305 2g! 258 245 249 214 181 223 206
Coverham ¢ f :— [20,563] 1,006 | 1,028 | 1,170 1,235 | 1,254 | 1,221 | 1,191 | 1,087 998 862 769
Caldbridge, or | 3,446 73 68 103 107 95 96 97 95 72 75 57
Caldbergh, with
East Scrafton
Township
Carlton Town | 2,742] 236 280 | 303 | 303| 274| 276| 263} 252! 199| 177
Township t¢ 578
Carlton High- 70,733 328 398 365 385 388 363 310 247 204 206
dale Townshipt
Coverham cum | 7,408 156 140 131 188 205 204 220 197 217 176 155
Agglethorpe
Township
Melmerby 1,213 106 177 112 127 110 | _ 120 123 96 710 102 79
Township
Scrafton, West, | 7,627 107 131 146 145 156 139 112 132 106 106 95
Township
Downholme or 6,716] 233 369 251 23 248 260 241 24 227 196 20
Downham f f :— ; ; : ?
Downholme 7,506 114 225 113 104 127 129 138 143 112 73 93
Township ¢
Ellerton Abbey | 7,674 47 67 56 58 50 44 44 48 37
Township 79 91
Stainton ee 1,877 54 44 47 40 25 35 41 45 40
ship
Walburn sage 1,659 40 53 37 26 24 33 28 27 30 30 33
ship
Fingall :— 4,578] 394] 417] 398] 460} 458] 432] 406} 389| 366] 323] 325
Akebar aoa 777 29 29 43 53 30 37 37 24 23 32 25
~ ship
Burton Consta- | 2,650 217 205 204 257 252 231 224 227 2713 189 180
ble Chapelry
Fingall aap 567 114 152 126 127 133 135 117 115 99 - 82 95
ship
Hutton Hang 590 34 37 25 23 43 29 34 29 31 20 25
Township
Grinton (part of)®°:-
Grinton Town- | 8,189[ 518] 649 689 | 696 594} 598] 611 469 | 377 280 | 262
shi
Hauxwell ¢ :— g 4,600] 300 321 334 361 338 326 273 253 252 247 244
Barden Town- 1,785 91 124 106 104 111 102 76 78 87 76 87
shi
Garriston cow 672 63 53 52 60 54 44 41 31 30 29 35
shi
Hauxwell, Beat 1,251 128 120 98 95 95 116 98
Townshi
Hauxwell, West, 892 160) 998 | 120 | 987 ge) go] ose | ao | 40) © S650
Township
Middleham tf -1 2,155] 728 714 880 | 914 930 | 966] 922] goog} 818 732 | 648
Patrick Brompton
(part of) 9 :—
Hunton 1,910} 388] 424} 496) 535] 534] 544] 524] 435] 411 | 322] 272
Chapelry ‘
Spennithorne:— ] 5,480] 655 | 776] 850] 848] 785] 796] 852] 741 | 693] 682] 585
Bellerby Town- 3,066 309 349 407 417 350 357 397 350 317 314 266
Shi
Harmby raed 7,110 176 202 194 233 237 218 263 193 182 171 148
shi
Spennithorne P 1,304 170 225 249 198 198 227 198 198 200 197 171
Township
Thornton 2,158] 222] 229] 265] 310] 268] 304] 253] 219] 249] 210] 204
Steward + f
Wensley :— 14,441] 1,505 | 1,869 | 2,182 | 2,266 | 1,969 | 2,105 | 2,337 | 2,170 | 2,172 | 1,933 | 1,672
Bolton Castle 4,960 242 265 278 269 230 240 259 197 169 149 122.
Chapelry
Leyburn Town- 2,515) 446 593 810 | 7,003 829 800 886 887 972 982 847
ship

59a See note 59 above.

69 See note 64 above.

515

69¢ See note 68 above.

A HISrORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued )

PaRIsH song 1801 | 181r | 1821 } 1831 | 1841
NorTH RIDING
(cont.)
Hang, West,
Wapentake (cont.)
Wensley (cont.) :-—
Preston-under- 2,573 260 345 378 362 313
Scar Township
Redmire 2,313 320 393 399 344 288
Chapelry
Wensley Town- | 2,080} 237 273 317 288 309
ship
Witton, East +t :—] 7,054] 682 | 695 747 687 624
Witton, East, 2,610) 388| 393 | 444| 395 | 327
Within Town-
ship t
Witton, East, 4,444 294 302 303 292 297
Without Town-
ship t
Witton, West t 3,880] 446) 439] 519} 552) 494
Langbaurgh
Liberty—East
Division
Brotton ¢ {:— 4014) 569 | 553} 492] 470] 468
Brotton bere 2,091 373 384 332 327 319
ship
Kilton Town- 1,724 129 107 100 80 86
ship ¢
Skinningrove 199 67 68 60 63 63
Township
Danby ; 6,289] 990 | 1,145 | 1,373 | 1,392 | 1,273
Easington { :— 6,221} 730| 689] 758} 716} 791
Easington 3,764 500 445 507 477 588
Township
Liverton basset 2,457) 230 244 251 239 203
ship
Egton .. «418,378 71 | 1,026 | 1,037 | 1,071 | 1,128
Glaisdale ‘ 4,967 % 3 877 | 1 a 3 | 1,004 | 1,021
Guisborough f :— |13,162] 2,003 | 2,094 | 2,180 | 2,210 | 2,015
Commondale 3,032 68 79 86 78 79
Township
Guisborough 7,034] 1,719 | 1,834 | 1,912 | 1,988 | 1,776
Township
Hutton Lowcross]| 7,569 59 70 56 52 57
Township
Pinchingthorpe 859 92 68 80 57 60
Township
Tocketts Town- 668 65 43 46 35 43
ship
Hinderwell f :— 4,915] 1,414 | 1,575 | 1,719 | 1,881 | 1,970
Hinderwell 1,658| 1,224 | 1,397 | 1,483 | 1,698 | 1,771
Township
a Chapelry| 3,257] 190| 178| 236 | 183} 199
irkleatham :— 9,323 | 1,008 | 1,00 1,091 | 1,0 1,0
Kirkleatham 5,050 680 ‘522 686 6 a3 ee
Township
Wilton 4,273 328 387 405 411 361
Chapelry tf
Lofthouse, or Loftus} 3,744] 1,186 | 1,145 | 1,178 | 1,038 | 1,091
Lythe :— 14,604 | 2,093 | 2,064 | 2,194 | 2,110 | 2,080
Barnby Town- 2,140 254 249 270 224 262
ship ¢
Borrowby Town-] 687 87 80 64 68 81
ship
Ellerby ee 763 74 65 80 64 78
s
Hutton Mul- 1,086 93 90 90 85 63
grave Town-
ship ¢
Lythe Town- 3,770] 1,037 | 991 | 7,134 | 1,176 | 1,063
ship ¢

1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 1891 | Igor
407 434 408 362 298 266
373 440 380 347 243 227
285 318 304 322 261 210
610 | 621 | 574] 476| 471 | 447
325 326 276 240 249 210
285 295 298 236 222 237
550| 659| 533| $50] 404] 326
518 | 509 | 3,441 | 5,959 | 5,622 | 5.534
321 | 330 | 2,672 | 3,753 | 3,544 | 3,323

83 93 222 431 412 445
114 86 | 547 | 1,775 | 1,666 | 1,766

1,313 | 1,637 | 1,478 | 1,304 | 1,198 | 1,216
803 | 752 | 1,309 | 1,313 | 1,310 | 1,243
602 566 672 644 546 477
201 186 637 669 764 766

1,129 | 1,115 | 1,330 | 1,266 | 1,329 | 1,020
986 | 1,074 | 1,887 | 1,103 | 1,009 930

2,308 | 4,615 | 5,671 | 7,188 | 6,138 | 6,242
91 130 132 167 128 223
2,062 | 4,084 | 5,202 | 6,616 | 5,623 | 5,645
49 271 205 233 250 242
55 75 67 117 83 75
51 55 65 55 54 57

1,947 | 2,805 | 2,811 | 2,653 | 2,189 | 2,081

1,736 | 2,571 | 2,599 | 2,467 | 2,027 1,937
211 234 212 186 168 144

1,307 | 2,034 | 3,058 | 5,191 | 5,422 | 6,183
789 | 1,107 | 1,930 | 3,898 | 4,209 5,038
518 927 | 1,128 | 1,293 | 1,213 | 1,145

1,192 | 1,103 | 2,230 | 4,318 | 3,897 | 3:976

2,163 | 2,118 | 1,941 | 2,095 | 1,574 | 1,397
280 247 206 196 132 120

95 98 89 88 77 63
91 103 68 83 50 47
71 73 65 55 48 34

1,094 | 1,053 964 | 71,782 777 738

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-

ParIsH r8or | 18rr | 182r | 1831 | 184r | 1851 1861 | 1872 | 1881

age 1891 | rgor

NoRTH RIDING
(cont.)

Lythe (comt.) :—
Mickleby Town- | 7,398 176 174 147 170 186 185 177 173 170 176 104

ship
Newton Mul- 2,347) 133 | 139} 134] 123} 105] 103} 111) 1779 80 84 76
grave Town-
ship
Ugthorpe Toete 2,419] 245 | 276] 275| 260) 242) 244] 256| 257] 2411 2301 275
ship
Marsket+:— | 4574} 934 | 890 | 1,249 | 1,302 | 1,297 | 1,603 | 2,800 | 5,8 10
Marske 3970) 503| 479| ‘576 | '373| 's03| 573 7,470 oh ape fe ae
Township t¢
Redcar 604] 431 | 417) 673 | 729| 794 | 1,032 | 1,330 | 1,943 | 2,297 | 2,619 | 2,956
Township f¢
er oe pn 5435] 414] 435] 436] 498] 468 | 726 | 5,194 | 7,894 {14,210 |19,999 {21,011
part of) :—
EstonChap. .| 2,453] 288 | 303 | 272| 334 | 285 | 465 | 2,835 | 4,151 | 6,297 |10,695 |11,199
Morton 1,007) 927 22 26 26 34 26 47 67 62 56 75
Township
Normanby 1,462) 99) 110] 122] 138} 134| 195 | 2,204 | 3,556 | 7,714 | 9,128 | 9,657
Township
UpsallTownship}] 573] — —_ 16) — 15 40 | 108) 120| 137 | 120 80
Skelton ¢ ¢ :— 11,736] 1,120 | 1,207 | 1,235 | 1,241 | 1,053 | 1,299 | 1,457 | 3,091 | 9,374 | 7,886 | 9,472

Moorsholm cum | 4,238 302 383 353 338 316 354 305 362 392 427 446
Girrick Town-

ship t
Skelton 4,263) 700| 717| 791 |) 781 | 628 | 826 | 1,034 | 2,561 | 7,820 | 6,382 | 7,797
Township t
Stanghow 3,235] 118 | 107 91| 122] 109) 119| 118] 168 | 1,162 | 1,077 | 1,229
Township t
Upleathamt . .} 1,426] 237 312 239 265 209 274 521 323 488 | 489 4II
Westerdalet . .| 9,914] 257 248 | 281 281 265 286 | 279] 283 266 | 245 258
Whitby -
of) 7 :—

Aislaby Chap. }] 1,073] 211 216 253 276 346 | 331 330 | 360 337 340 273

Langhaurgh
Liberty—West
Division
Aclam, Westt .| 976 98 105 105 102 97 18 Ce) 108 129 164 155 130
YE oe 1,865} 451 | 400] 492] 553] 559] 506 | 466} 383 | 331} 294] 291
iske
Ayton ¢ :-— 6,394] 1,066 | 1,091 | 1,201 | 1,296 | 1,216 | 1,304 | 1,688 | 1,784 | 2,020 | 1,961 | 1,996
Ayton, Great, 3,589] 865 | 922 | 1,023 | 1,103 | 1,014 | 1,109 | 1,450 | 1,515 | 1,754 | 1,727 | 1,674
Township ¢
Ayton, Little, 1,378] 69 41 68 68 65 69 78 74 | 101 99| 124
Township

Nunthorpe Chap,} 7,427 132 128 110 125 137 126 160 195 165 135 198

Carltonf . 1,359] 275 230 | 260] 256] 259| 224] 243 311 253 231 255
Crathornef . .] 2,600] 307 304 330 304 294 243 256 216 247 | 216 248
Hiltont . . . .f'1,391] 136 133 135 113 126 IIo 127 147 135 112 118
Ingleby Arncliffe,] 1,892] 253] 290] 331 335 329 | 352] 326] 289] 306] 279] 237
or Arncliffe ¢
Ingleby 7010] 376] 343] 347] 368| 355) 361 | 481 | 513] 391 | 453] 442
Greenhow f
Kildalet . . .| 5,195] 201 202 209 188 181 145 221 237 280 | 223 247
Kirkby-in- 4,863} 625] 604] 685 | 469} 712] 723] 804) 896] 810) 74r 712
Cleveland t :—
Broughton 3,093} 460 444 517 287 511 504 577 649 566 504 481
Township
Kirkby-in- 1,770) 165 760 168 182| 201 | 219 | 227 | 247 | 244) 237) 231
Cleveland
Township

\ |

_ 7 Ormesby Parish is situated in Langbaurgh Liberty—East and West Divisions. The population of Upsau Vownship
in 1801, 1811, and 1831 was wrongly included in the part in the West Division. : ;

1 Whitby Parish is situated in Langbaurgh Liberty—East Division—and in Whitby Strand Liberty. Theseamen in
registered vessels in Whitby Harbour were included in 1821, but excluded in 1831 to the number of 764.

517

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—190! (continued)

PaRIsa ere 1801 1811 | 1821 | 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 | 1881 1891 | Igor

NORTH RIDING
(cont.)
Langbaurgh
Liberty—West
Division (cont.)
Kirk Leavington :—] 5,623 2 68 | 637| 517 | 483| 513] 543) 563 | 548} 548] 555
Castle ori 59 61 44 45 46 44 53 44 44 40 47

Leavington
Township
Kirk Leavington] 2,202] 239 233 282 222 233 226 182 155 197 210 201
Township
Picton Town- 1,004 91 84 94 86 58 72 96 97 108 114 129
shi
Worsall, Low, : 1,346 165 190 217 164 146 177 212 267 199 184 178
Township
Marton . fasta 342) 361 | 397] 363] 410 | 426] 587] 856 | 1,057 1,183 | 1,488
le ay 3,210] 239 | 212 | 236 | 383 | 5,709 | 7,893 |19,416 |39,415 [55,367 |74,952 |90,936
rough f¢ :—
Linthorpe 2,136 214 177 196 229 246 262 702 \10,551 |\18,736 |25,341 |32,816
Township t
Middlesbrough | 7,080] 25 35 40| 154 | 5,463 | 7,631 |18,714 |28,864 [36,637 [49,611 |58,120
Chap. ft
Newton-in- 1,175] 149 137 119 148 147 127 122 133 116 99 112
Cleveland t¢
Ormesby
(part of) 74 :—
Ormesby 2,883] 357! 399| 349| 403| 383| 446) 1,105 | 4,231 | 7,774 | 81757 | 91586
Township
Rudby t :— 7,562] 1,092 | 1,121 | 1,311 | 1,397 | 1,256 | 1,119 | 1,147 | 1,155 1,282 | 1,200 | 1,209
Hutton Rudby 2,371 707 762 919 | 1,027 917 777 769 768 849 821 851
Township ¢
Middleton-upon- | 7,745 110 100 171 89 114 95 108 112 87 73 65
Leven Chap.
Rounton, East, | 7,627 109 102 135 127 93 112 114 115 166 157 142
Chap.
Rudby-in- 889 80 88 76 81 72 66 69 61 87 62 72
Cleveland
Township ¢
Sexhow 528 44 34 38 35 33 35 42 33 34 32 36
Township
Skutterskelfe 1,008 42 35 32 38 33 34 45 66 65 55 43
Township
Seamer - -f 2,651] 249] 268 | 226] 224] 247] 251 260 | 244 246 | 227 | 208
Stainton ¢ :— 7,756] 800 806 968 | 1,000 | 2,256 | 2,485 | 3,858 | 7,699 |11,480 |16,037 |16,511
Hemlington 1,119 58 77 72 83 71 97 94 101 103 110 115
Township
Ingleby Barwick] 7,579 162 114 175 177 138 147 140 162 132 115 124
Township
MaltbyTownship] 1,777] 747 155 168 168 171 124 141 128 113 138 139
Stainton 2,306) 272| 311| 356| 271| 391) 358| 357| 341 | 337 | 344) 347
Township

Thornaby with | 7,695] 167| 149| 197| 307 | 1,485 | 1,759 | 3,126 | 6,967 |10,795 \15,330 |15,786
South Stockton

Townshipt
Stokesley t+ :— 6,394] 1,755 | 15759 | 2,290 | 2,376 | 2,734 | 2,446 | 2,401 | 2,293 | 2,184 | 1,922 | 2,020
ee 706 34 22 38 38 33 32 24
ownship
Busby, Creat, | gost, $20) 8 | ee 08 114| 134| 117) 171| 98| 99| 115
Township
Easby Township] 7,277 138 107 124 157 144 136 124 145 136 114 98
Newby ; 1,256 127 137 152 152 132 114 129 122 115 164 147
Township
Stokesley — 7,818] 1,369 | 7,439 | 1,897 | 1,967 | 2,310 | 2,040 | 1,993 | 1,877 | 1,802 | 1,513 | 1,642
Township ? +
Whorlton :— 9,726] 845] 834] 968] 915] 798} 865 | 1,008 | 941 | 1,064} 733) 766

Faceby Chap.t .] 7,382] 127| 139] 778| 743] 145 | 140| 164| 148| 174| 110) 142
Potto Townshipt] 7,532] 774| 785] 207| 187| 148| 185 | 194] 188| 209| 186| 192

Whorlton - 6,812 544 510 583 585 505 540 650 605 681 437 432
Township t¢
73

Yarm* +t. . «| 1,198] 1,300 | 1,431 | 1,504 | 1,636 | 1,511 | 1,647 | 1,40r | 1,340 | 1,445 | 1,554 | 15541

“la See note 70 above.
: Stokesley Township.—The population in 1841 included a number of visitors at the annual fair.
78 Yarm Parish.—In 1851, 119 men were temporarily present, engaged on railway works.

518

SOCIAL

AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-
ParIsH age y8or | 1811 | 182r | 1831 | 184r | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | rgor
NORTH RIDING
(cont.)
Pickering Lythe
Wapentake
Allerston. . « -]10,058] 319 | 344] 401 | 385) 414] 450] 413] 407] 444] 373| 369
Brompton :— 11,359] 993 | 14145 | 1,303 | 1,337 | 15534 | 1,572 | 1,484 | 1,560 | 1,689 | 1,476 | 1,343
Brompton — 4,099} 370 435 516 496 609 617 538 605 687 550 455
Township t¢
Sawdon [7,278] 720 | 125 | 139] 146) 142] 197| 166) 169| 167| 152| 181
Township t
Snainton | 4,837| 450 | 525| 603| 636) 687| 695) 713) 724| 775 | 707| 682
Township
Troutsdale =| 7,205] 53 60 45 59 96 69 67 62 60 67 55
Township
Capen with [3,504] 354] 413 | 519 | S5t4| 572) 551} 534 566 | 609] 556] 605
sgodby t :—
Cayton 2,426) — 343 447 449 503 492 457 482 480 461 _
Township f
Osgodby 1,078} — 70 72 65 69 59 77 84] 129 95| —
Township +¢
Ebberston . . .| 6,095] 365 | 437| 505] 509| 579] 571] 572| 598] 592] 538| 561
Ellerburn t t :— | 3,598] 496 575 606 623 686 654 648 643 661 571 481
Farmanby and] 7873 310 366 403 431 470 452 467 452 493 420 348
Ellerburn
Township t¢
Wilton Chap. 1,785 186 209 203 192 216 202 181 197 168 157 133
Filey (part of)* :—| 2,486] 255 | 309] 355] 390] 359] 374| 363] 319] 360} 309 346
Gristhorpe 1,206 129 181 212 217 206 200 207 180 203 199 278
Township
Lebberston 1,280 126 128 143 173 153 174 156 139 157 110 128
Township
Hutton Busheltt:—j 6,051] 572 595 648 671 811 918 gi2 888 | 958 796 749
Ayton, West, 2,264 162 211 229 256 305 305 385 405 458 391 372
Township f
Hutton Bushel 3,787} 410 384 419 415 506 613 527 483 500 405 377
Township f
Kirby Misper-
tont:—| 7,001] 675 | 757] 809] 864] 905] 993] 1,002] 978| 952] 804) 767
Barughs Ambo | 7,460 188 241 241 294 304 306 318 285 267 220 212
Township
Habton, Great, 950 85 93 136 122 156 181 182 165 165 126 131
Township
Habton, Little, 473 46 45 50 56 57 58 67 62 52 50 33
Township
Kirby Misperton} 7,792 163 165 170 170 169 221 215 236 270 223 223
Township
Ryton Township] 2,326 193 213 212 222 219 227 226 230 204 185 168
Levisham{. . 2,976] 123 138 152 168 163 152 148 122 105 116 114
Middleton f :— 25,751} 1,454 | 1,532 | 15727 | 1,742 1,862 | 1,942 | 2,100 | 3,642 | 1,963 | 2,234 | 2,234
Aislaby 925 163 153 147 126 128 125 180 166 134 125 119
Township f
Cawthorn 1,134 22 18 20 25 33 20 25 23 20
Township i 269 313
Cropton Chap. ¢ } 4,337 321| 330| 335 | 373 | 360| 368| 353 | 308 | 304
Hartoft
Township > + | 2,940 89 104 134 142 168 160 180 165 144 134 146
Lockton Chap. .] 7,769] 245 252 324 312 347 406 396 365 400 352 309
Middleton 2,156| 235 229 247 266 261 248 283 279 285 260 256
Township t
Rosedale East 5,202] 287 308 339 376 387 373 446 | 2,041 393 815 882
Side Chap.
Wrelton 7,888 166 173 193 172 216 232 222 238 229 217 198
Pick Pee 6 61 | 4,501 | 4,862 | 5,040 | 4,711 | 4,454
ickering t :— 1,271] 2,6 007 | 35555 | 31346 | 3,902 | 4,101 | 4:50 ’ ’ ’ ’
Goathiand Po'z92| 267 39) | 852 | 526 | gar | 40 | 578 | §92| 874) 497 | 474
Chap. ,
Kingthorpe 1,210) 37 44 52 47 52 52 54 39| 50| 47| 40
Townshi
Marishes c 2,335| 200| 193] 210| 207) 243 | 294 287 | 304| 270) 199) 204
Township +
Newton Char ¢ 2,397 151 168 212 211 233 252 243 238 247 266 oe
Pickering 16,037| 1,994 | 2,332 | 2,746 | 2,555 | 2,992 | 3,112 3,399 | 3,689 | 3,959 | 3,702 | 3,513
Township t+

783 See note 4 above.

519

78> See note 76 below.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-

ParisH 1801 | 1811 1821 1831 | 1841 | 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901
age
NORTH RIDING
(cont.)
Pickering Lythe
Wapentake (cont)
Scalby ¢ :— 11,902] 1 1,425 | 1,559 | 1,676 | 1,886 | 1,829 | 1,876 | 1,929 | 1,905 | 2,049 | 2,407
dl Fa 2009 Bae gon Sarl aed ame | age | geo cee age eee 308
Township +
Cloughton : 2,538 297 335 366 415 454 450 441 469 512 534 537
Chap. t
Newby F 991 44 56 40 55 54 47 50 74 74 49 96
Township t¢ ’
Scalby 2,730 409 454 446 583 612 600 643 604 600 672 830
Township t
Stainton Dale 3,145 aii 262 294 252 306 343 347 284 238 237 284
Township
Throxenby 399 48 58 66 54 71 57 45 7130 128 225 352
en g06 8 6 | 1,305 | 1,192 | 1,299 | 1,197 | 1,21
Seamer :— 8,450] 80 1,034 g8r | 1,121 | 1,24 5 . F ; 212
Ayton, East, ous 293 327 "333 360 362 390 406 375 399 353 aad
Township
Irton Town- 1,259 94 105 107 134 118 125 124 148 163 148
shi
Seamer Pl se96|> 575 (ae 596| 514| 625| 738| 774| 693| 752| o81| 771
Township j
Sinnington 2,892] 466} 505 598 | 571 608 | 564 586 564 | 508] 464] 479
art of) 7% :—
re " 677 192 206 255 23] 240 248 243 208 193 141 148
Township t
Sinnington 2,215 274 299 343 340 368 316 343 356 315 323 337
Township t¢

Thornton Dale ¢ ft] 6,461] 731 805 879 | 937 | 886} 927 893 796 765 696 | 682

Turnhill ”6 1,086 — 12 6 8 53] — _
Extra Par.
Wykeham tf. .| 8,248] 382] sir} 582) 605] 597| 643] s2r| 556] 554] 4931 435
Ryedale
Wapentake
Ampleforth
(part of) 76a +
Ampleforth St.J 941 97 160 214 207 207 232 245 199 231 361 222
Peter
Township 7 ¢
PU 5889] 724 | 813} 873] 860] 944] 942] 987] 994] 955} 890] 889
treet :—
Amotherby 7,837 285 292 249 246 239 245 256 282 280 270 269
Chap.
Appletoniestrce! 1,633 157 146 173 158 185 183 185 182 178 151 146
Township
Broughton 866 77 og 94 1717 1717 97 123 120 109 97 92
Township
Hildenley 304 = —e 23 12 22 30 42 49 43 54 68
Township
Swinton 1,255] 217 282 334 333 387 387 387 361 345 318 314
Township
Barton le Street 2,337] 241 221 226 246 249 267 263 253 229 246 195
of)” :
Barton le Strect] 7,674 168. 159 176 190 185 189 184 171 166 177 145
Township
Butterwick 663 73 | 62 50 56 64 78 79 82 63 69 50
Township

Edston, Great t :—j 1,833] 160 154 180 177 153 152 152 145 124 128 133
Edston, Great, 1,288 144 137 156 156 134 137 135 123 113 104 108
Township |
Holme, North, 545 16 17 24 21 19 15 17 22 11 24 25
Township f

™ Throxenby Township. —A militia depét was erected between 1861 and 1871 in this Township, and was in occupa-
tion at the latter date.

75 Sinnington Parish is situated in Pickering Lythe Wapentake and in Ryedale Wapentake.

76 Turnhill—The population in 1881-1901 is included in that given for Hartoft Township.

76a See note 45 above.

7 Ampleforth St. Peter Township —The figures given for 1811 are estimated. 77a See note 52 above.

78 Great Edston Townshib.—The population of Little Edston Township for 1801 is included in this Township.

520

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

PaRISH a w80r | 1811 | 182z | 1831 | 18qr | 185r | 1861 | 187z | 1881 | 1891 | Ig01

NORTH RIDING
(cont.)

Ryedale Wapen-
take (cont.)

Gilling :-— 4,125 336 310 329 37 386 386 40oI 452 376 396 415

Cawton 1,056 87 105 107 93 79 110 104 107
: Township

Gilling Township 2,072 197 176 168 214 232 230 244 271 245 221 219

Grimston 997 47 47 56 68 53 63 78 71 64 71 95
Township

Helmsley :— 40,074 | 3,302 | 3,366 | 3,601 | 3,562 | 3,475 | 3,483 | 3429 | 3.451 | 3.493 | 3,296 | 3,059

Beadlam Town- | 7,457 93 137 143 151 158 137 145 140 154 169 174
ship

Bilsdale Mid- 14,231 644 678 780 759 738 721 738 767 677 596 578
cable Chap.

Harome Chap. {| 2,362 373 471 461 445 422 462 447 425 439 375 383
Helmsley Town-| 8,823] 7,449 | 7,475 | 1,520 | 1,485 | 1,465 | 1,487 | 1,384 | 1,437 | 1,550 | 1,508 | 1,363
ship
Laskill Pasture | 7,579 79 97 91 85 94 84 105 77 93 90 76
Township
Pockley Chap. .] 3,444 228 235 227 217 210 224 199 210 188 209 176
Rievaulx Town- | 5,377 223 212 212 225 216 209 229 225 227 208 187
ship
Sproxton Town- | 2,867 213 187 167 195 172 171 182 170 165 141 128
ship
Hovingham (part | 7,492] 842 968 | 1,003 | 1,029 | 1,088 | 1,054 | 1,033 984 999 918 829
senshi doles auancoih de of) 783 + :—
Airyholme and 597 31 38 33 42 36 35 35 43 41 39 34

Howthorpe
Township
Colton Township] 7,089 98 109 112 131 158 170 146 136 137 109 107
FrytonTownship] 7,735 72 62 62 60 77 103 109 84 93 90 57
Holme, South, 904 53 60 66 65 62 67 68 69 84 62 59

Township
Hovingham 2,859 495 599 649 672 687 622 608 587 600 565 529
Township
Ness, East, 536 74 75 59 38 46 38 49 52 39 39 35
Township t
Wath Township] 372 19 25 22 21 28 19 18 13 11 14 20
Kirkby nue 18,034] 2,113 | 2,458 | 2,734 | 2,613 | 2,758 | 2,611 | 2,659 | 2,557 | 2,575 | 2,378 | 2,253
side t :—
Fadmoor Town- | 7,552 133 160 162 158 176 174 156 168 149 135 148
ship ¢
Farndale, West 7,182 268 286 289 275 233 338 247 221 223 184
Side, or High
Quarter
Township 356
Farndale, Low 3,403 180 213 185 188 180 154 177 173 150 139
Quarter
Township
Gillamoor 7,391 228 177 195 179 214 189 160 183 189 187 159
Township t¢
Kirkby Moorside] 4,506] 7,396 | 1,673 | 1,878 | 1,802 | 1,905 | 1,835 | 1,857 | 1,788 | 1,843 | 1,683 | 1,623
Township t¢
Kirkdale :— 9,830] 728 940 | 1,449 | 1,117 | 1,040 | 1,036 | 1,043 | 1,062 | 987 968 gor
Common Lands 141 — — = _ _ _ _ _ _— _- —
Muscoates 983 70 68 65 62 71 62 64 74 7 72 54
Township +¢
Bransdale West | 2,050 68 93 286 80 85 73 70 75 64 52
Side Township 124
Skiplam tne 2,572 70 82 170 84 84 87 81 67 81 68
shi
Welburn ea 1,681 103 117 112 112 137 147 121 110 130 125 134
shi
Nawton aly 1,216 337 329 358 387 350 343 322
shi
‘ Wombleton a rra7|{t 417 | 580) 876 | 819 |) 337 | 335| 340| 340| 294) 283| 271
Township ¢
Lastingham:— [18,917] 1,319 | 1,477 | 1,548 | 1,477 | 1,463 | 1,380 | 1,597 | 2,145 | 1,526 | 1,649 | 1,485
Common Lands] 7,567 — = _— — a << ase ais em tres ges
Appleton-le- 1,323] 254 290 276 269 322 295 265 277 300 242 207
Moors Town-
ship f

8a See note 57 above.

3 521 66

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParisH Bate: 1801 w81r | 1821 | 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 | Igor

age

NORTH RIDING
(cont.)

Ryedale Wapen-
take (cont.)

Lastingham
(cont.) :—
Farndale East 6,163 381 480 455 405 383 371 390 377 370 322 306

Side Township
Hutton-le-Hole | 7,086] 238 243 304 276 272 239 277 332 273 260 248
Township
Lastingham 417 222 224 225 217 175 184 216 229 184 174 133
Township
Rosedale West | 7,082 117 156 179 178 201 175 338 798 309 549 514
Side Township
Spaunton Town-| 7,285] 707 84 109 138 110 116 117 132 90 102 77
ship

Malton, New, St. 1,748 | 2,203 | 2,339 | 2,573 | 2,391 | 2,207 | 2,120 | 1,878
Leonard 3344 | 2,999 | 2,615
Malton, New, St. 491\1,299 | 1,510 | 1,666 | 1,600 | 1,630 | 1,634 | 1,566 | 1,357 |(2 ’ ’
Michael
Malton, Old. .} 3,968] 741 | 961 | 1,064 | 1,204 | 1,296 | 1,505 | 1,403 | 1,763 | 1,928 |] 1,911 | 2,143
Normanby ¢ f :— | 2,406] 181 182 223 258 245 198 234 217 213 200 188
Normanby 1,786 148 148 191 219 212 176 199 185 178 157 156
Township
Thornton Rise- 620 33 34 32 39 33 22 35 32 35 43 32
borough
_ Township ¢
Nunnington . .| 2,123] 291 339} 418] 441 479 | 443 | 423 430 | 403 | 354] 325
Oswaldkirk t:— | 3,077] 354 | 349| 388] 400] 449] 428] 524] 549] 486] 390] 405
Ampleforth 882 167 139 176 197 159 214 305 343 289 208 216
Oswaldkirk
Quarter or
Township t
Oswaldkirk 2,195 193 210 212 209 290 214 219 206 197 182 189
Township ¢ f
Salton ¢ :-— 2,763] 257 276 | 336 355 371 379 384 316 326 280 256
Brawby Town- 1,014 103 139 188 199 218 218 215 177 174 148 134
ship
Salton Township] 7,749 154 137 148 156 153 161 169 139 152 132 122
Scawton. . . .| 2,875} 129 150 154 148 139 153 148 157 132 11g 102
Sinnington (part
O° 78b —
Edston, Little, 171}, — 14 16 I I I 21 20 I I Il
Township 7 ; ; 4 :
Slingsbyt . . .f 2,571] 434 464 548 562 609 632 707 648 596 526| 457
Stonegrave ¢ :— 2,725] 244] 252] 314] 327] 351 277 | 290 | 295 264 | 231 233
Ness, West, 869 49 56 65 59 75 64 57 53 65 56 62
Township t¢
Newton, East, 941 69 60 72 79 82 63 84 76 59 51 44
and Laysthorpe
Township
Stonegrave 915 726 136 177 189 194 150 149 166 140 124 127
Township

Whitby Strand

Liberty :
Fylingdales ~ . .] 6,325] 1,568 | 1 559 | 1,702 | 1,535 | 1,611 | 1,784 | 1,721 | 1,558] 1
, ’ ] 448 1,482 1,591
Hackness +f :— [11,887] 605 | 630 | '632 | "749 | ’714| "668 | 658 658 | ‘687 | "623 | '663

Broxa Township] 535 49 67 61 74 65 69 57 44 55 41 34
Hackness Town- 2,456 170 174 143 215 182 169 207 213 203 188 235

ship
Harwood Dale 5,537 185 200 238 242 210 214 207 207 200 186
_Township 7 +
Silpho ee es a cae eee) a 7 ee
ship
Suffield cum 7,912 110 98 97 124 132 146 120 119 137 103 108
Everley
Township
*S> See note 75 above. “sc See note 78 above. 79 Harwood Dale Township.—The 1811 population is estimated.

89 Silpho Township.—The 1801 population is estimated.
522

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-
PaRIsH ee r8or | 181r | 182r | 1831 | 184r | 1851 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | Igor

NORTH RIDING
(cont.

Whitby Strand
Liberty (cont.)

Sneatonf$ . . .] 4,848] 173 167 | 251 230 | 238 257 | 268] 244 232] 218 223
Whitby ae 13,762 ]10,763 |10,059 |12,331 |11,449 |11,336 12,544 |13,684 |15,081 |16,826 |15,764 |13,754
ie) aco
Common Lands.] 7,591] — — — _ _ _ = = =
Eskdaleside, or 1,940] 344 364 395 277 519 731 814 | 1,197 | 1,415 | 1,346 847
Sleights, Chap.t
Hawsker cum 3,813} 549 519 634 654 724 786 914 972 962 | 1,062 886
Stainsacre
Township
Newholm cum 2,197 346 326 259 347 383 373 382 335 400 377 307
Dunsley
Township
Ruswarp Town- 7,709] 1,565 | 17,498 | 1,918 | 1,980 | 1,879 | 2,163 | 2,995 | 4,236 | 4,839 | 5,097 | 5,019

ship
Ugglebarnby 2,470] 476 383 428 426 448 451 437 455 390 381 346

Chap. ¢
Whitby Town- 48] 7,483 | 6,969 | 8,697 | 7,765 | 7,383 | 8,040 | 8,142 | 7,886 | 8,820 | 7,501 | 6,349
ship
Richmond
Borough
Richmond . - .| 2,520] 2,861 | 3,056 | 3,546 | 3,900 | 3,992 | 4,106 | 4,290 | 4,443 | 4,502 | 4,216 | 3,837
Scarborough
Borough
Scarborough :— 2,373] 6,688 | 7,067 | 8,533 | 8,760 |10,048 |12,915 |18,377 |24,259 |30,504 [33,776 (38,161
Falsgrave 279 357 345 397 545 757 | 1,173 | 1,868 | 4,266
Township
Scarborough 2,373 9,503
Township 33,776 |38,167
Scarborough 6,409 | 6,710 | 8,188 | 8,369 12)| 12,158 |17,204 |22,391 |26,238
Castle Precinct
Extra Par.
ae 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 IgOI
Total of the North} — [158,955|167,779,188,201/192,255|/204,734/215,225/245,267/293,274|346,264/367,911.391,011
Riding
PaRiIsH oe w8or | 181x | 182r | 1831 | 184r | 1851 | 1861 | 187r | 1881 | 1891 | xg0r

WEST RIDING

Agbrigg Wapen-
take—Lower
Division
Ardsley, East{ .] 1,819] 686 812 832 853 900 838 | 1,069 | 1,596 | 2,505 | 3,075 | 4,028
Ardsley, West { | 2,327] 1,032 | 1,332 | 1,515 | 1,450 | 1,420 | 1,429 | 1,646 | 2,559 | 3,471 | 3,709 | 3,868
Batley (part Fe 4,804] 4,682 | 5,432 | 6,748 | 8,660 /11,163 (14,129 [21,013 |30,478 [42,516 147,444 [51,525

of) # :—
Bedeya ease 2,039] 2,574 | 2,975 | 3,717 | 4,847 | 7,076 | 9,308 \14,173 |20,871 |27,505 |28,719 |30,321
Morley Town- 2,765 | 2,108 | 2,457 | 3,031 | 3,819 | 4,087 | 4,821 | 6,840 | 9,607 |15,0171 |18,725 |21,204
ship
Croftont . . -{ 1,520] 535 424 459 361 389 363 402 | 492 702 824 | 1,896

80a See note 7 above. ; .
81 Batley Parish is situated in Agbrigg Wapentake—Lower Division—and in Morley Wapentake.

523

‘A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

\
Paris veda 1801 1811 | 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901
i

age

WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Agbrigg Wapen-
take—Lower
Division (cont.)

Dewsbury (part 7,035 [10,124 |11,751 14.254 |17,446 |21,131 [25,374 |32,336 |42,350 |50,989 |§2,324 |52,400
of) 8 -—
Dewsbury 1,471] 4,566 | 5,059 | 6,380 | 8,272 |10,600 |14,049 |18,148 |24,764 |29,637 |29,847 |28,060
Township
Ossett with 3,105 | 3,424 | 4,083 | 4,775 | 5,325 | 6,078 | 6,266 | 7,950 | 9,190 |10,957 |10,984 |12,684
Gawthorpe
Township ®
Soothill Town- | 2,459] 2,734 | 2,609 | 3,099 | 3,849 | 4,453 | 5,059 | 6,238 | 8,396 |10,395 |11,493 |11,656
ship
Emley (part
fo} en

Emley Town- 3,556] 1,120 | 1,261 | 1,351 | 1,445 | 1,575 | 1,706 | 1,441 | 1,275 | 1,289 | 1,406 | 1,429

ship t
- Featherstone (part | 2,051] 319] 356] 364 357 | 493 658 | 1,790 | 3,396 | 4,808 | 5,535 | 5,611
of) & :—
Acton Township 968 86 85 72 51 76 8&2 67 54 706 729 738
Whitwood 1,083 233 271 292 306 417 576 | 1,723 | 3,342 | 4,102 | 4,806 | 4,873
Township
Methley~ . . .f 3,493] 1,234 | 1,385 / 1,499 | 1,593 | 1,702 | 1,926 | 2,472 | 3,277 | 4,074 | 4,357 | 4,271
Mirfeld . . . . 3,766] 3,724 | 4,315 | 5,041 | 6,496 | 6,919 | 6,966 | 9,263 |12,869 |15,872 |16,841 |17,040
Newland cum 311 — 42 46 46 45 2 78 46 49 57 60
Woodhouse
Moor Extra Par.
Normanton :— 4,127] 737 | 818) 773} 899 | 1,323 | 1,238 | 1,923 | 6,585 12,452 |15,480 17,914
Altofts Town- 1,838] 334 | 408 | 404) 502} 704 | 603 | 1,210 | 2,666 | 3,172 | 3,791 | 4,024
ship ®t
Normanton 1,228 276 269 250 283 481 495 563 | 3,448 | 8,038 |10,234 |12,352
Township
Snydale Town- 7,061 127 147 119 114 138 140 150 471 | 1,242 | 1,455 | 1,538
ship
Rothwell ¢ :— 9,010] 4,776 | 5,004 | 6,253 | 6,635 | 7,462 | 7,541 | 8,072 | 9,482 |12,182 |14,184 |15,973

Lofthouse with | 7,984] 978 | 7,054 | 7,396 | 1,463 | 1,536 | 1,658 | 2,028 | 2,580 | 3,528 | 3,875 | 4,047
Carlton Town-

ship t
Middleton 7,815 831 906 | 1,096 976 | 1,077 977 902 | 1,058 | 1,134 | 1,236 | 1,268
Township
Oulton with 1,361] 1,223 | 1,267 | 1,526 | 1,496 | 1,789 | 1,771 | 1,857 | 2,042 | 2,344 | 2,817 | 3,078
Woodlesford
Township *® t¢
Rothwell Town- | 3,302] 7,689 | 7,717 | 2,155 | 2,638 | 2,988 | 3,052 | 3,220 | 3,733 | 5,105 | 6,164 | 6,754
ship ¢
Thorp Town- 548 55 66 80 62 72 83 71 69 71 92 826
ship
ae 6,572] 2,296 | 2,325 | 2,538 | 2,717 | 3,267 | 3,836 | 4,082 | 4,884 | 7,662 8,613 [10,834
agna :—
Crigglestone 3,130] 1,216 | 1,225 | 1,265 | 1,266 | 1,479 | 1,827 | 2,021 | 2,377 | 2,777 | 2,862 | 3,246
Township
Sandal Magna | 7,679] 765 | 789| 888 | 1,075 | 1,278 | 1,536 | 1,590 | 2,019 | 4,264 | 5,082 | 6,843
Township
Walton ee 1,822 ois 317 385 376 510 473 471 488 627 669 745
; ship
Thornhill :-— 8,122] 4,284 | 4,705 | 5.458 | 6,271 | 7,201 | 6,858 7,633 | 9,709 |13,016 |13,658 |14,197
Flockton 1,108} 800} 930) 988 | 995 | 1,096 | 1,040 | 7,090 | 7,116 | 1,180 | 1,273 | 1,251
__ Chapelry
Shitlington | 3,472] 7,766 | 7,470 | 1,635 | 1,893 | 2,164 | 1,959 | 2,022 | 2,287 2,993 | 2,839 | 2,656
Township
Thornhill pte 2,564] 7,499 | 1,679 | 1,932 | 2,371 2,816 | 2,791 | 3,479 | 5,285 | 7,857 | 8,727 | 9,500
: ship
Whitley, Lower, 7,038 819 746 903 | 1,012 | 1,125 | 1,068 | 1,042 7,027 986 879 790
Township ¢

Dewsbury Parish is situated in Agbrigg Wapentake—Lower Division—and in Morley Wapentake.
Ossett with Gawthorpe Township.—The population in 1841 included 221 persons attending a feast.
§ Emley Parish is situated in Agbrigg Wapentake—U pper and Lower Divisions.
i ®S Featherstone Parish is situated in Agbrigg Wapentake—Lower Division—and in Osgoldcross Wapentake—U pper
ivision.
$6 iltofts TownshiP.—In 1841 a number of men were temporarily present engaged on railway works.

“ Oulton with Woodlesford Township.—The 1841 ulation included a number of rail labourers engaged in
sxcavating Woodlesford Cutting. wee iar ai aac.

524

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParisH Bele ee ame 8 8 8 8
age Ir 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881

1891 IgOT

WEST RIDING
(cont.)

Agbrigg Wapen-
take—Lower
Division (cont.)

Wakefield t :— {10,057 |16,597 |18,474 |22,307 [24,538 29,992 |33,117 |35,739 143,493 |51,140
Alverthorpe with} 3,345 3,105 | 3,756 | 4.448 | 4.859 | 5,930 | 6,068 | 6,645 | 8,735 |10,486
ornes

Township +
Horbury Chap. .] 7,280] 2,107 | 2,356 | 2,475 | 2,400 | 2,683 | 2,803 | 3,246 | 3,977 | 5,050

Stanley with 4,674] 3,260 | 3,769 | 4,620 | 5,047 | 6,625 | 7,257 | 8,237 |10,305 |13,431
Wrenthorpe

Township
Wakefield : 758 | 8,131 | 8,593 \10,764 |12,232 |14,754 |16,989 |17,611 |21,076 |22,173
Township t+
Warmfield f :— 2,780} 804 813 | 1,071 995 | 1,050 969 | 1,045 | 1,741 | 2,867
Sharlston _ | 7,200 179 174 330 243 221 164 262 814 | 7,890
Township
Warmfield with | 7,580] 625 639 741 752 829 805 783 927 977
Heath Town-
ship

Agbrigg Wapen-
take—Upper
Division

Almondbury + :— [34,086 }17,431 |19,795 |24,601 [31,248 137,907 |42,316 143,551 [46,991 |53,656

Almondbury 2,636 | 3,751 | 4,613 | 5,679 | 7,086 | 8,828 | 9,749 |10,367 |11,669 |13,977
Township

Austonley 3,316) 674 | 814 | 968 | 1,420 | 1,940 | 2,234 | 1,901 | 1,535 | 1,662
Township t

aaa Oe 1,834] 7,227 | 1,424 | 1,583 | 2,258 | 2,826 | 2,922 | 2,794 | 2,863 | 3,048
Chap.

Farnley Tyas 1,784 730 757 900 849 844 843 702 601 614
Township

Holme Town- 1,728] 302 347 459 630 713 849 807 724 678
ship t

Honley Chap. .] 2,435] 2,529 | 2,978 | 3,507 | 4,523 | 5,383 | 5,595 | 4,626 | 4,906 | 5,070
Lingards Town- | 734] 642| 772] 809| 758| 807| 877| 783 | 825 | 873

ship
LinthwaiteChap.| 7,323] 7,387 | 7,643 | 2,127 | 2,852 | 3,370 | 3,802 | 4,300 | 5,047 | 6,068
Lockwood 970] 1,253 | 1,490 | 1,881 | 3,134 | 4,182 | 5,418 | 6,755 | 8,270 |10,446

Chap.” +

Marsden Chap.t]| 8,633] 7,958 | 7,845 | 2,330 | 2,340 | 2,403 | 2,665 | 2,689 | 2,817 | 3,379
Meltham Chap.| 4,692| 7,278 | 7,430 | 2,000 | 2,746 | 3,263 | 3,758 | 4,046 | 4,229 | 4,529
Netherthong 795 679 787 927 | 1,004 | 1,156 | 1,207 | 7,097 | 7,092 936
Chap.
Upperthong 3,206| 1,033 | 1,075 | 1,437 | 1,648 | 2,258 | 2,463 | 2,690 | 2,479 | 2,436
Township t
Emley part of)**:—
Cumberworth 1,185] 854 898 | 1,120 | 1,180 | 1,480 | 1,683 | 1,974 | 1,929 —
Half Town-

ship ®>
Huddersfield ¢:— |12,719]14,400 17,864 [23,598 |30,399 |37,862 |45,618 |51,592 |57,816 [65,448
Golcar Chap. { .] 7,593] 1,846 | 2,122 | 2,606 | 3,743 | 3,598 | 4,212 | 5,770 | 6,033 | 7,653
Huddersfield 4,055 | 7,268 | 9,677 |13,284 |19,035 |25,068 |30,880 |34,877 |38,654 |42,234
Township
Longwood Chap. 7,334| 1,276 | 1,467 | 1,942 | 2,111 | 2,418 | 3,023 | 3,402 | 4,055 | 4,667

Quarmby with | 7,494] 1,377 | 1,686 | 2,040 | 2,306 | 2,887 | 3,584 | 4,259 | 5,490 | 7,284
Lindley Chap.t
Scammonden 1,807) 626| 647| 855 | 912| 972 | 1,067 | 1,012| 803| 607
Chap.f
Slaithwaite 2,436 | 2,007 | 2,277 | 2,871 | 2,892 | 2,925 | 2,852 | 2,932 | 2,787 | 3,009
Chap.
Kirkburton $:— [15,268] 8,772 |10,582 |12,439 |14,551 |17,965 |19,887 |19,882 |18,243 18,243
Cartworth 2,263) 997 | 1,121 | 1,211 | 1,796 | 2,247 | 2,538 | 2,503 | 2,155 | 2,379
Township f¢
Fulstone 2,261| 1,128 | 1,139 | 1,264 | 1,573 | 1,856 | 2,257 | 2,414 | 2,223 | 2,117
Township f

56,244 [61,938
12,086 |13,475

5,673 | 6,736
15,576 \18,033

22,909 |23,694

31323 | 3337
2,256 | 2,231

1,067 | 1,106

88 Lockwood Chapelry includes the area and population (1861-1901) of Crosland Hill Hamlet,
which was included in that of South Crosland Chapelry from 1801-1851.
882 See note 84 above. 88b See note 21 below.

525

the population of

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-

PaRIsH age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 | 1871 1881 1891 | Igor
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Agbrigg Wapen-
take— Upper
Division (cont.) |
Kirkburton
(cont.) :—
Hepworth 2,375 804 828 | 1,048 | 1,229 | 1,436 | 1,532 | 1,530 | 1,290 | 1,169 | 1,084 | 1,157
Township t
Kirkburton 7,289} 1,405 | 1,693 | 2,153 | 2,650 | 3,474 | 3,560 | 3,664 | 3,442 | 3,407 | 3,154 | 2,976
Township °°
Shelley Town- | 7,568] 476 | 1,057 | 1,329 | 1,379 | 1,772 | 1,880 | 1,907 | 1,751 | 1,687 | 1,599 | 1,545
ship
Shepley Town- | 7,247] 679] 793 1,000| 893 | 1,088 | 1,200 | 1,432 | 1,507 | 1,593 | 1,726 | 1,720
ship
Thurstonland 2,107 783 868 989 | 1,098 | 1,286 | 1,320 | 1,116 | 1,007 997 933 865
Township
Wooldale 2,158] 2,620 | 3,083 | 3,445 | 3,993 | 4,806 | 5,600 | 5,322 | 4,874 | 4,894 | 5,437 | 4,949
Township t+
Kirkheaton :— 6,932| 4,871 | 6,544 | 7,968 |10,020 |11,930 |11,972 |11,923 [12,687 [14,575 |14,744 |14,548
Dalton Town-_ | 7,344] 1,222 | 1,625 | 2,289 | 3,060 | 3906 | 4,310 | 4,692 | 6,170 | 7,900 | 8.473 | 8.321
ship
Lepton Town- 1,862] 2,180 | 2,585 | 2,729 | 3,320 | 3,875 | 3,592 | 3,273 | 2,989 | 3,019 | 2,855 | 2,771
ship
Kirkheaton 1,674 1,690 | 2,186 | 2,755 | 3,165 | 3,068 | 3,011 | 2,646 | 2,747 | 2,632 | 2,492
Township
Whitley, Upper, | 2,052]("999 |) 64a| 764 | 885] 984! 1,002| 947| 882| 909| saa| 764
Township
Rochdale (part
of) % :—
Saddleworth : 18,797 [10,665 |12,579 |13,902 |15,986 |16,829 |17,799 |18,631 19,923 |22,299 |22,462 |21,140
with Quic
Chapelry
Barkston Ash
Wapentake—
Lower Division
Birkin ¢ :— 5,883] 766] 812] 917| 873] g21| 877] 821} 747] 727| 751 | 682
Birkin Town- 2,160 139 136 139 129 169 176 168 172 180 158 142
ship t
Chapel Haddle- 1,163 152 165 199 196 216 230 210 177 177 210 175
sey Township f¢
Haddlesey,West,} 7,793 224 238 293 296 288 222 213 179 148 152 133
Township t¢
Hirst Courtney] 627 132 152 145 117 134 137 126 117 112 116 105
Township
Temple Hirst 746 119 127 141 135 114 112 104 102 110 115 127
Township
Brayton ¢ { :— 11,627] 1,274 | 1,379 | 1,489 | 1,612 | 1,894 | 1,806 1,794 | 1,912 | 1,964 | 1,860 | 2,032
Barlow Town- 2,334 173 195 175 225 284 276 239 268 208 236 223
ship
Brayton Town- 7,949 227 274 252 278 307 333 367 394 529 517 687
ship ¢
Burn Township.| 2,482 7189 aet 238 244 281 316 320 362 347 317 297
Gateforth Town- 2,063 178 145 192 223 258 192 174 177 180 177 153
ship
Hambleton 2,336) 386 416 488 494 607 528 544 547 530 489 517
Township
Thorpe Willough- 463 122 128 144 148 157 167 150 164 176 130 155
by Township
Brotherton f :— 2,389] 1,115 | 1,457 | 1,626 | 1,623 | 1,744 1,551 | 1,449 | 1,196 | 1,266 | 1,413 | 1,428
Brotherton 934] 994 | 1,325 | 1,497 | 1,482 | 1,673 | 1,454 | 1,333 | 1,085 | 1,159 | 1,308 | 1.313
Township
isha be hee 823 69 61 67 84 79 57 65 74 68 }
ownship 105| 115
SuttonTownship}] 632 52 71 74 57 52 40 51 37 39
Cawoodt ... 2,843] 1,025 | 1,053 | 1,127 1,173 | 1,108 | 1,195 | 1,243 | 1,179 | 1,108 1,008 990
89 Kirkburton Townshit.—The population in 1841 includ

% Rochdale Parish —T

he remainder is in Lancashire (

526

led 153 strangers attending the annual feast.
Salford Hundred).

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—r1901 (continued)

Acre-

ParIsH. age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 Igo1

WEsT RIDING
(cont.)

Barkston Ash
Wapentake—
Lower Division
(cont.)

Draxtt:—. . .] 6,905 760 915 | 1,083 | 1,032 | 1,161 | 1,289 | 1,231 | 1,201 | 1,077 | 1,068 | 1,001
Camblesforth 1,596 190 231 257 260 321 335 322 299 280 281 277
Township ¢
Drax Townshipt | 7,382 221 296 370 350 364 420 446 443 371 409 373
Drax, Long, or] 7,637] 170| 169) 187 | 140| 171| 181| 162| 166| 156| 117| 128
Langrick
Township
Newland pate 2,296 179 219 269 282 305 353 301 293 270 267 223
ship
MonkFryston ¢ :—] 4,254} 581 715 860 863 937 | 1,054 | 1,126 | 1,053 | 1,106 | 1,102 | 1,131
Burton Salmon 956 114 138 182 142 166 240 247 245 273 268 275
Township
Monk Fryston]| 7,777 277 319 409 430 429 474 560 496 506 500 539
Township +
Hillam Town-]| 7,527 190 258 269 291 342 340 319 312 327 334 317
ship ¢
Ryther (part of)*:—
Ryther and Os-] 2,707] 299 279 | 335 302 300 314 326 310 292 255 266
sendyke Town-

ship
Selbyt . . . .] 3,643] 2,861 | 3,363 | 4,097 | 4,600 | 5,376 | 5,340 | 5,424 | 6,193 | 6,046 | 6,006 | 7,424
Snaith (part of)%?:—
Carleton Chap.t{] 4,220] 536 687 775 808 802 784 752 769 747 779 816
Wistowtt . . .[ 4,316] 647 623 633 665 756 788 849 817 769 674 618

Barkston Ash
Wapentake—
Upper Division

Bramham :— . .| 5,734] 1,452 | 1,640 | 1,987 | 2,403 | 2,760 | 3,152 | 3,484 | 3,524 | 3,750 | 3,364 | 3,371
Bramham cum] 4,772 792 805 970 | 1,237 | 1,194 | 1,378 | 1,331 | 1,150 | 1,146 | 1,034 955
Oglethorpe
Township f

Clifford cumBos-] 7,622] 660 | 835 | 1,017 | 1,166 | 1,566 | 1,834 | 2,153 | 2,374 | 2,604 | 2,330 | 2,416
ton Township
KirkbyWharfef:—]| 3,449] 485 | 548| 574] 492] 744] 702| 739] 708] 714| 676} 665
Grimston Town- 888 71 56 62 63 172 115 124 170 108 101 92
ship®
Kirkby Wharfe 7,239 79 90 86 90 87 102 100 1712 147 125 146
with North
Milford Town-

ship
Ulleskelf Town-] 7,322 335 402 426 339 491 485 515 486 459 450 427
ship
Kirk Fenton tf :—] 3,472] 514 582 693 649 608 720 7II 733 726 659 736
718

Biggin Township 123 | 164| 147| 126] 144| 142) 154| 124) 118| 114
Fenton, Little, } 223 {
Township 781 119 113 102 104 99 100 89 84 72 87
Kirk Fenton 1,973) 291 340 416 406 378 477 469 490 518 469 535
Township t

Ledsham :— . .] 5,385] 797 787 881 944 | 1,122 | 1,096 | 1,146 965 | 1,001 | 1,240 | 1,222
Fairburn Town-] 7,429 339 351 426 465 523 482 458 422 509 647 666

ship

Ledsham Town-} 7,977 220 241 212 236 340 402 459 337 271 382 340
ship

Ledston Town-] 7,985 238 195 243 243 259 212 229 206 221 217 216
ship

1 Ryther Parish is situated in Barkston Ash Wapentake—Lower and Upper Divisions. The entire population of
the Parish in 1801 is shown in the Lower Division. one ;
9 Snaith Parish is situated in Barkston Ash Wapentake—Lower Division—and in Osgoldcross Wapentake—Lower
Division. .
93 Grimston Township—The population in 1841 included a number of labourers temporarily present, engaged in
rebuilding Grimston Hall.
527

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-

ParisH. age r8or | 1811 | 1821 1831 | 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 | 1891 1901
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Barkston Ash
Wapentake—
Upper Division
(cont.)
Micklethwaite 671] — _ 83 67 76 68 66 71 103 105 80
Grange
Extra Par.™
Newton Kyme with] 1,373 149 163 184 221 201 223 162 162 158 173 211
Toulston f
Ryther (part of) ¥ ;
Lead Township.| 1,057} — 58 50 59 54 54 46 45 33 43 32
Saxtonf:— . .| 3,607] 458] 409] 472] 522] 573! 493] 461] 461} 415] 424] 402
Saxton with 2,720} 362 318 378 407 427 371 360 359 322 316 300
Scarthingwell
Township
Towton Town- 887 96 91 94 115 146 122 107 102 93 108 102
ship
Sherburn ¢ :— —_. 13,360] 2,286 | 2,421 | 2,916 | 3,068 | 3,757 | 3,754 | 3,944 | 3,949 | 4,545 | 4,998 | 5,270
Barkston Ash 1,164 264 229 257 265 323 310 319 279 358 276 293
Township t
Huddleston and] 7,423 108 101 184 212 247 221 267 257 238 223 231
Lumby Town-
ship t
Lotherton and] 7,093 323 389 427 426 564 597 547 486 443 482 506
Aberford
Township
Micklefield 1,777 135 188 196 228 474 426 435 373 694 | 1,023 | 1,377
Township
Milford, South,] 2,298 457 491 631 719 751 683 823 927 | 1,057 | 1,064 | 1,068
Township
Newthorpe 746 46 65 83 63 70 77 88 85 84 71 79
Township
Sherburn Town-] 4,859] 953 | 958 | 1,144 | 1,155 | 1,328 | 1,440 | 1,465 | 1,542 | 7,677 | 1,859 | 1,716
ship
Tadcaster (part 4,295 | 1,663 | 1,812 | 1,907 | 1,996 | 2,206 | 2,040 | 2,092 1,892 | 2,006 | 2,029 | 2,380
ce) <—s
Stutton with 2,795 252 329 256 330 380 347 446 331 346 ols 471
Hazlewood
Township
Tadcaster, West,| 1,500] 1,417 | 7,483 | 1,657 | 1,666 | 1,826 | 1,693 | 1,646 | 1,561 | 1,660 | 1,714 | 1,909
Township

Claro Wapentake
—Lower Division

Aldborough (part 5,613] 1,537 | 1,633 | 1,835 | 2,102 | 2,112 | 2,110 | 1,882 | 1,822 1,935 | 1,857 | 1,668

of) 4° :—
Aldborough 2,242] 445 464 484 620 615 538 522 502 507 507 439
Township
sia ger 95 680 747 860 950 | 1,024 | 1,095 909 857 966 924 830
q ap. {
Minskip 1,414 204 205 243 267 234 230 220 230 219 214 182
_ Township
Roecliffe 1,862 208 217 248 265 239 247 231 233 243 212 217
Township
Burton Leonard ¢ .] 1,797} 352} 433} 518/ 553] 455] 457] so7| 460| 431 374 | 363
Eoperere Pek 6 ee 105 104 87 120 103 85 68 81 88 83 69
arnham :— 2,5 445 | 535} 548} 614] 580} 556) 572] 558 6 448 14
Farnham 1,043 139 142 147 169 170 137 165 146 Pe 118 29
Township
*errensby, or 424 86 96 110 133 112 122 86 106 117 100 98
Firnsby,
Township
Scotton 1,129 220 297 297 312 298 297 327 306 291 230 287
Township
Fewston :— 17,645 | 1,688 | 2,178 | 1,989 | 2,035 | 2,118 | 1,479 | 1,485 | 1 1,21 86
Blubberhouses 3.736 120 129 126 178 ; 99 83 2 a : 79 “ Hh
Township t+

% Micklethwaite Grange includes Bielby Grange. The combined population of Micklethwaite Grange and Biel
Grange for r80r and 18rr is included in that given for Collingham Parish (Skyrack Wapentake—Lower Division). om
4a See note gi above. ‘Hb See note 37 above. Sc See note 66 above.

528

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

PaRIsH. a 1801 181r | 1821 1831 | 1841 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 189I | Igor
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Claro Watentake
—Lower Division
(cont.)
Fewston (cont.) :-—
Clifton with Nor-] 3,627] 403 | 415 | 420| 415| 387| 474| 364 | 496| 335| 334| 333
wood Township
Fewston 2,187 526 823 610 683 850 399 496 399 323 233 197
Township
Thruscross, or 6,529 467 610 600 601 576 339 363 302 313 219 181
Thurcross,
Township ¢
Timble, Great, 1,566 172 201 233 218 206 184 175 187 171 118 92
Township +
Hamps- _ 11,901] 2,276 | 2,437 | 2,450 | 2,589 | 2,500 | 2,494 | 2,422 | 2,186 | 2,095 | 1,799 | 1,944
thwaite ¢ :—
Birstwith 1,802] 630| 694) 621 | 747| 676| 630) 655| 570] 490| 474 | 482
Township
Felliscliffe 2,628 424 397 382 357 363 382 347 321 326 278 317
Township
Hampsthwaite ¢ | 7,735 439 418 490 445 455 461 513 448 457 390 471
Township
Menwith with 2,867 554 637 648 742 725 718 650 575 575 463 502
Darley
Township
Thornthwaite 3,475] 229 291 309 304 281 303 257 272 247 194 178
with Padside
Township
Haverah Park 2,246 71 76 87 96 IOI 103 100 84 64 71 272
Extra Par.
Kirkby aay 56,004] 3,408 | 3,420 | 4,263 | 4,707 | 5,180 | 4,956 | 4,680 | 4,178 | 4,118 | 3,412 | 3,407
zeard t :— :
Common Lands 2804 — _ = _ _— _ _ _— ai _ _
Azerley 4,018 527 527 579 701 836 783 606 721 683 497 4138
Township t ‘é
Fountains Earth] 6,743] 329 381 441 413 435 388 415 367 322 265 278
Township
Grewelthorpe 4,521 479 473 527 571 582 573 547 517 516 451 410
Township t¢
Hartwith with 5,363 449 480 675 943 | 1,138 | 1,162 | 1,227 997 | 1,062 857 936
Winsley Chap.t
Kirkby Malzeard }| 3,363 524 596 682 796 900 796 730 587 616 522 486
Township t
Laverton 6,697 368 171 430 457 487 450 387 342 305 289 277
Township t+
Stonebeck, Down,}72,508 434 451 568 494 429 385 400 364 331 279 298
Township
Stonebeck, Up- [72,577 304 341 367 332 373 419 374 301 283 252 284
per, Township
Knares- 12,129] 5,761 | 7,348 | 9,101 |10,214 | 9,947 |10,208 |11,314 |13,345 |16,129 |20,216 |28,993
borough f :—
Arkendale Chap. ] 7,60¢ 218 215 285 260 267 241 242 208 192 201 169
Bilton with 4,121] 1,195 | 1,583 | 1,934 | 2,812 | 3,372 | 3,434 | 4,563 | 6,775 | 9,279 |13,143 |19,283
Harrogate
Chap. t¢
Brearton 1,562 146 175 226 248 201 241 235 184 162 130 155
Township ¢
Knaresborough | 3,073] 3,388 | 4,542 | 5,283 | 5,296 | 4,678 | 4,879 | 4,848 | 4,818 | 5,065 | 5,331 | 7,730
Township f-
Scriven with 7,829] 814 | 833 | 1,373 | 1,598 | 1,435 | 1,413 | 1,426 | 1,360 | 1,431 | 1,417 | 1,656
Tentergate
Township ¢
Ouseburn, Great} | 1,568] 415 | 395 | 437] 534] 610) 629] 599] 571 | 499] 475] 425
Ouseburn, Little 2,890} 181 176 234 194 236 211 229 210 163 148 146
(part of) * + :—
Kirby Hall 427 35 36 55 50 54 48 62 59 35 52 35
Township
Thorpe Under- | 2,463 146 140 179 144 182 163 167 151 128 96 177
woods Town-
ship t¢
95 Little Ouseburn Parish is situated in Claro Wapentake—Upper and Lower Divisions.
3 529 67

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParisH. ra w8or | 181r | 82x | 183r | 184r | 1851 | 186x | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | 1901

WEST RIDING
(cont.)

Claro Wapentake
—Lower Division

(cont.)
Pannalt. . . «| 4,898} 789] 914 | 1,314 | 1,261 | 1,413 | 1,376 | 1,587 | 1,893 | 2,547 | 3.335 | 7,300
Ripley (Pen ; 5,459] 892 | 880] 931} 949] 952 | 1,003 | 1,228 | 1,050 | 1,070 | 1,069 | 1,206
ie) —
Clint Township .] 7,944 430 395 412 404 393 434 482 396 392 398 397
Killinghall 3515] 462] 485| 579] 545| 559| 569| 746] 654| 678| 671} 809
Township t
Ripon (part of) °” :-—116,657] 2,102 | 2,366 | 2,775 | 2,704 | 2,634 | 2,530 | 2,632 | 2,333 | 2,341 | 2,159 | 2,046
Aldfield 1,272 422 119 133 146 132 125 128 138 125 116 105
Township
Bewerley 5,775| 1,075 | 1,220 | 1,408 | 1,370 | 1,329 | 1,265 | 7,297 | 1,737 | 1,184 | 1,013 | 1,070
Township
Dacre Township] 5,385] 592) 770! 777| 698] 695| 673! 739| 642! 641| 605! 565
Lindrick — 26 20 62 25 17 16 12 — oma = =
Township
Skelden 990} —| —| 56 49 48 35 37 32 28 38 28
Township
Studley Roger 988 133 144 157 152 169 159 154 148 156 156
Township 143
Studley Royal | 7,517 21 19 60 50 33 37 | 103 99| 109 77
Township ®
Winksley 730 144 143 176 259 217 214 223 127 116 122 105
Township

Stainley, South, 2,131 217 216 232 243 226 247 259 242 215 188 190
with Cayton}
Staveley . . .['1,425] 255 | 327] 331 | 330] 347] 348| 343] 318] 327] 297] 243
Whixley (part
of) * :-—
Thornville 265 15 13 13 17 18 9 16 15 18 15 22
Township

Claro Wapentake
—Upper Division

Aldborough (part 2,058} 228 253 271 296 279 301 295 251 209 17I 179
ie) =
Dunsforth,Lower,] 7,048 118 125 115 133 116 138 144 127 100 98 112
Township
Dunsforth,Upper,} 7,070 110 128 156 163 163 163 157 124 109 73 67
with Branton
Green Town-
ship
Allerton Maul- 2,698} 182 256 290 251 277 344 283 | 306 273 237 202
everer ¢ { :—
Allerton Maul- 2,282 182 237 276 231 258 327 267 282 258 aZ2 195
everer with

Hopperton
Township
Clareton 416 _ 19 14 20 19 17 22 24 15 15 7
Township ft
Cowthorpe¢t .] 1,370} 148 143 120 146 115 139 141 117 124 112 112
Goldsborough ¢f:—J 2,896] 342] 348] 385) 359] 459] 488] 451] 374| 371] 358) 324
Coneythorpe 392 99 112 112 96 118 125 418 83 79 80 94
Township ¢
Flaxby ae 718 66 59 78 96 102 117 76 87 87 53 53
ship
Goldsborough 1,786 177 177 195 167 239 246 260 210 2771 225 177
Township

% Rifley Parish is situated in Claro Wapentake—Upper and Lower Divisions.

%7 Riton Parish is situated in Claro Wapentake—Lower Division—and in the Liberty of Ripon. The population
for 1801 and 1811 of Skelden Township was returned with the part of Ripon Parish in the Liberty of Ripon, i.e. in the
Township of Grantley.

% Studley Royal Township includes the area and the population (1871-1901) of Lindrick Township.

® Whixley Parish is situated in Claro Wapentake—Upper and Lower Divisions, 94 See note 66 above.

530

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

PaRIsH. el 1801 | 1811 1821 1831 | 1841 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | Igor
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Claro Wapentake
—Upper Division
(cont.)
Harewood et) 2,844] 455} 535 | 567| 583] 682) 549] 527] 476| 492] 440] 563
0: =
Dunkeswick 1,467 218 238 257 261 297 249 210 163 169 136 152
Township +
Weeton Tou. 1,377| 237 297 310 322 385 300 317 313 323 304 411
ship! +
Hunsingore { :— | 4,220] 465 506 599 595 625 586 561 545 554 502 442
Cattal Township} 7,726 152 187 207 208 193 202 189 177 178 157 144
Hunsingore 1,159 192 196 237 235 262 205 192 187 183 178 164
Township

Ribston, Great, 1,935 121 129 155 152 170 179 180 187 193 167 134
with Walshford
Township
Ikley (part of) ?:—] 4,585] 302] 412] 415 | 372] 396| 391 | 364] 354] 328] 289] 300
Middleton 2,660 207 233 205 166 186 162 176 143 151 144 173
Township
Nesfield with 7,925 107 179 210 206 210 229 188 ail 177 145 127
Langbar
Township
aaah 11,548] 1,469 | 1,599 | 1,646 | 1,528 | 1,623 | 1,598 | 1,569 | 1,324 | 1,191 | 1,118 | 1,197
ow :—
Kearby with 7,422 220 237 226 231 226 218 207 190 147 131 144
Netherby
Township
Kirkby Overblow] 2,367 294 357 370 344 381 376 326 261 266 287 308
with Swindon

Township
Rigton Township] 3,772] 474 407 429 451 542 463 507 430 383 345 370
Sicklinghall 1,495 230 249 257 212 226 296 292 246 227 217 225
Township
puerta 3,158] 311 355 364 290 248 245 243 197 174 150 150
hap. f

Kirk Deightont :—] 3,750] 483 461 512 506 539 480 485 410 464 468 466
Deighton, North,] 7,475 163 158 147 137 168 110 127 94 117 104 103
Township
Kirk Deighton | 2,275] 320 303 371 375 371 370 364 316 353 364 363
Township

Kirk Hammerton,
(part of) # :—
KirkHammerton]| 1,089] 216] 285 409; 270] 255 291 310 | 281 280 | 346] 348
Township
Leathley ¢ f :— 2,089] 366 432 422 413 382 330 272 276 237 208 211
Castley 524 82 96 110 118 110 83 73 73 87 67 69
Township ¢
Leathley 1,565 284 336 312 295 272 247 199 203 150 147 142
Township t
Marton with 2,167] 393 384 464 482 514 472 454 424 365 320 298
Grafton f
Nun Monkton + ¢ .] 1,775] 308 299 344 398 365 358 323 300 261 232 251
Otley (part of)*:—] 9,027] 812 752 819 759 858 839 722 | 1,114 734 765 989
Denton Chap. ft | 3,242 192 192 192 179 185 186 170 201 147 184 178

Farnley 1,960 194 161 179 196 217 198 186 147 139 134 156
Township

Lindley 1,790 164 172 178 125 140 135 108 442 56 60 56
Township

Newall with Clif} 7,537 203 172 208 203 253 260 209 267 361 368 580
ton Township}
Timble, Little, 504 59 55 62 56 63 60 49 63 31 19 19
Township

100 Havewood Parish is situated in Claro Wapentake—Upper Division—and in Skyrack Wapentake—Upper and
Lower Divisions. The population of the part in Skyrack Wapentake—Upper Division—included in 1841 some
labourers temporarily present, employed by the Leeds Waterworks Company, and in 1881 a considerable number of
workmen engaged in constructing Waterworks for the Leeds Corporation.

1 Weeton Township.—The 1841 population included forty-two labourers temporarily present engaged in road formation.

2 Ilkley Parish is situated in Claro Wapentake—Upper Division—and in Skyrack Wapentake—Upper Division.

2a See note 35 above.

8 Otley Parish is situated in Claro Wapentake—Upper Division—and in Skyrack Wapentake—Upper Division.
The population of the partin Claro Wapentake—Upper Division—included in 1871 a number of labourers engaged in
constructing reservoirs.

531

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

|
PaRISH. pee 1801 1811 1821 | 1831 1841 | 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Claro Wapentake
—Upper Division
(cont.)
Ouseburn, he 1,407] 182} 291 324 | 317 384 355 314 358 265 237 231
(part 0 S
ican, Little,} 706 182 260 293 287 359 330 281 319 240 218 211
Township
Widdington 701 _ 31 31 30 25 25 33 39 25 19 20
Township
Ripley (part of) :-—
Ripley Township] 1,643] 270] 273 251 270 | 283 283 330 260 291 253 236
— 5! 5,647] 457| 518} 521 | 500] 455] 441 | 449] 390] 388} 368) 383
part of) * :—
Beamsley 2,160 276 310 312 279 235 239 264 209 215 195 235
Township ¢
Hazlewood and | 3,487 187 208 209 221 220 202 185 187 173 173 148
Storiths
Township ¢
Spofforth :— 13,196] 2,803 | 2,857 | 3,044 | 3,233 | 3:398 | 3599 | 3,733 | 3515 | 35745 | 3,619 | 3,908
Follifoot 7,865) 273 | 322| 293 | 327| 353 | 367| 419 | 404) 496) 487) 593
Township
Linton Township] 7,266 155 179 167 166 169 176 166 157 160 172 169
Plompton 2,137 197 190 208 221 229 207 219 173 166 171 178
Township
Ribston, Little, 858 187 198 195 222 246 242 230 188 181 185 174
Township
Spofforth with | 5,468] 859| 828) 964| 976] 968 | 1,113 | 1,017 | 936| 856| 766) 75?
Stockeld
Township
Wetherby 1,602] 1,144 | 1,140 | 1,217 | 1,321 | 1,433 | 1,494 | 1,682 | 1,657 | 1,886 | 7,838 | 2,043
Township
Walkingham Hill 427 — 17 24 25 2g 21 28 27 23 32 20
with Occaney
Extra Par.
Weston t :— 4,904) 437| 434] 475] 521] 526] 492} 450] 456] 387] 347] 360
Askwith cum Jat gi7 306 367 400 398 378 338 286 260 231 233
Snowdon
Township
Weston 1,513 120 128 108 127 128 114 112 170 127 116 127
Township
Whixley (part of)‘ :} 3,581] 637 703 796 951 928 | 1,002 938 857 816 754 731
Green Hammer- | 7,206 259 285 329 330 334 366 333 3171 295 281 273
ton Township
Whixley 2,375 378 418 467 621 594 636 605 546 521 473 458
Township
Morley Wapentake
Batley(part of)*® :—} 1,482] 1,734 | 2,075 | 2,406 | 2.675 | 3,115 | 3,229 | 4,265 | 5,138 | 51443 | 55155 | 5,086
Churwell 490 502 666 814 | 1,023 | 1,198 | 1,103 | 1,564 | 1,690 | 1,973 | 1,980 | 2,013
Township
Gildersome 992] 1,232 | 1,409 | 1,592 | 1,652 | 1,917 | 2,126 | 2,701 | 3,448 | 3,470 | 3,175 | 3,073
Chap. ft
Birstall :— 13,988 114,657 |17,639 |21,217 [24,103 |29,723 |36,222 143,505 |54,505 |62,781 |66,757 [67,424
Clackheaton 1,756] 1,637 | 1,917 | 2,436 | 3,317 | 4,299 | 5,173 | 6,231 | 8,138 |\10,653 |11,826 |12,524
Chap.
pa 1,135] 1,232 | 1,365 | 1,719 | 1,676 | 2,046 | 2,740 | 4,274 | 4,388 | 4,214 | 4,322 | 4,218
hap. }
Gomersal ‘ 3,258) 4,303 | 5,002 | 5,952 | 6,189 | 8,030 | 9,926 |11,230 |12,880 |13,453 \13,004 |12,311
Township
Heckmondwike 696| 1,742 | 2,324 | 2,579 | 2,793 | 3,537 | 4,540 | 6,344 | 8,300 | 9,282 | 9,709 | 9,459
Township f
Hunsworth 1,381 585 764 870 878 978 | 1,156 | 1,199 | 1,284 | 1,516 | 1,400 | 1,346
Township
LiversedgeChap.] 2,736] 2,837 | 3,643 | 4,259 | 5,265 | 5,988 | 6,974 | 8,176 |11,103 |12,757 13,668 13,980
Torg Chap.t .| 2,659] 7,336 | 1.505 | 1,893 | 2,067 | 2,515 | 2,797 | 3,035 | 4,229 | 5,597 | 6,899 | 7,312
Wike Township | 967] 985 | 1,725 | 1.509 | 1,918 | 2,330 | 2,916 | 3,016 | 4,183 | 5,315 | 5,929 | 6,274

p 8 See note 95 above. 8b See note 96 above.
‘ Skipton Parish is situated in Claro Wapentake—Upper Division—and in Staincliff and Ewcross Wapentake—
East Division. 4a See note 99 above. 4> See note 81 above.

532

SOCIAL

AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParIsH. pe w8or | 81x | 1821 1831 | 1841 | 1851 | 186r | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | Igor

WEST RIDING

(cont.)

Morley Wapentakel

(cont.)

Bradford :— 32,930 129,794 |36,358 [52,954 | 76,986|105,257|149,5.43/156,053|207,149/251,553|275,21 1|290,297
Allerton 1,849} 809 | 1,093 | 1,488 | 1,733; 914} 2,047) 2,074) 2,906] 3,685| 3,976] 4,364
; Township
Buerley, Nore 5,341] 3,820 | 4,766 | 6,070 | 7,254) 9,512] 11,710| 12,500| 14,433) 15,620| 16,249| 16,266

_ Township
Romine - 1,561} 2,055 | 2,226 | 3,579 | 5,958] 8,978) 13,538| 14,494] 20,982| 28,738| 33,318| 37,220
ownship
Pitiod 2 1,595 | 6,393 | 7,767 |13,064 | 23,223) 34,560| 52,493| 48,646] 64,440] 68,372) 72,675| 73,454
ownship
Clayton 1,744] 2,040 | 2,469 | 3,609 | 4,469] 4,347] 5,052| 5,655) 6,436] 7,080| 7,484] 7,722
Township
Eccleshill 7,221] 1,357 | 1,608 | 2,176 | 2,570] 3,008] 3,700| 4,482) 5,622| 7,037| 7,928 8,660
Township
Haworth Chap.]| 8,174] 3,764 | 3,977 | 4,668 | 5,835] 6,303] 6,848| 5,896| 5,966] 6,873] 8,023] 8,431
Heaton _ | 7,323] 957 | 1,088 | 1,277 | 1,452) 1,573] 1,637] 1,673| 1,929 3,707| 4,073| 4,431
Township
Horton Chap. | 2,033] 3,459 | 4,423 | 7,192 | 10,782| 17,615| 28,143] 30,189| 40,725| 46,045| 48,770) 52,409
Manningham 1,319] 1,357 | 1,596 | 2,474 | 3,564) 5,622| 9,604) 12,889] 19,683] 37,304| 45,051) 47,871
ownship ;
Shipley 7,406] 7,008 | 7,214 | 1,606 1,926, 2,413| 3,272| 7,100) 11,757| 15,093| 16,043| 17,938
Township
Thornton Chap.] 4,786| 2,474 | 3,016 | 4,100 | 5,968) 6,788| 8,051| 7,627| 9,143] 9,633| 8,977] 8,464
Wilsden 2,638) 913 | 1,121 | 1,711 | 2,252| 2,684) 3,454] 2,888] 3,127] 2,966| 2,764) 3,067
Township

Calverley :— 8,900 }10,375 11,550 |14,134 | 16,184) 21,039] 24,487] 28,563] 34,308] 39,613] 44,317] 475144

Bolton 712) 474 587 634 671 683 874 937) 1,271; 2,573) 3,161) 3,225
Township ¢

Calverley with | 3,780] 2,087 | 2,390 | 2,605 | 2,637] 4,142| 4,892] 5,559] 7,024) 8,206 9,657] 10,347
Farsley Town-
ship

Idle Chap. . «| 2,462] 3,398 | 3,882 | 4,666 | 5,416] 6,212) 7,118| 9,155| 12,036) 13,375| 14,462| 15,103

Pudsey Chap. .] 2,546] 4,422 | 4,697 | 6,229 | 7,460] 10,002] 11,603| 12,912] 13,977| 15,459| 17,037| 18,469

Dewsbury

(part of) # :—

Hartshead cum | 3,070] 1,628 | 1,728 | 2,007 | 2,408] 2,675] 2,729] 2,652| 2,943/ 3,023} 3,266; 3,452
Clifton Chap.

Halifax t :— 82,543 163,434 /73,415 [93,050 |109,899|130,743/140,25 7/147,988]1 73,3 13|193,707|210,697/221,061

Barkisland 2,424| 7,799 | 2,076 | 2,224 | 2,292) 2,397) 2,129} 2,003| 2,056| 2,102| 1,835] 1,729
Township
Elland with 3,449| 3,385 | 3,963 | 5,088 | 5,500| 6,479| 7,225] 8,716| 10,546| 13,007| 14,679] 15,308
Greetland
Township
Erringden 3,012] 1,373 | 1,586 | 1,471 | 1,933| 2,221] 2,004] 1,764] 17,724| 1,865] 7,886] 1,888
Township
Fixby 935} 346 336 345 348 399 399 388 469 503 485) 432
Township t
Halifax 999| 8,866 | 9,159 |12,628 | 15,382| 19,887] 25,161) 28,990| 37,208| 42,633| 48,131| 50,600
Township
Heptonstall 5,394| 2,983 | 3,647 | 4,543 | 4,661| 4,797) 4,177| 3,497] 3,595| 4,047] 4,617| 4,656
’ Township

Hipperholme 2,598) 2,879 | 3,357 | 3,936 | 4,977| 5,421) 6,091| 7,340) 9,871) 12,660| 15,571| 17,073

cum Brighouse
Township

Langfield 2,784| 1,170 | 1,515 | 2,069 | 2,514| 3,284| 3,729) 4,391| 4,321| 5,063| 5,581] 5,578
Township

Midgley 2,629] 1,209 | 2,107 | 2,207 | 2,409| 2,667| 2,393| 2,842| 3,192) 3,084| 3,055| 2,968
Township

Norland 1,273| 1,187 | 1,316 | 1,665 | 1,678] 1,670| 7,706] 1,778] 7,906] 1,988) 1,977| 1,889
Township

Northowram 3,520| 4,887 | 5,306 | 6,841 | 10,184| 13,352| 15,285| 16,178] 20,094] 20,218| 20,517| 21,476
Townshi

Ovenden = 5,350| 4,513 | 4,752 | 6,360 | 8,871| 11,799] 12,738) 11,067| 11,698] 12,874] 13,458| 14,079
. Township

Rastrick Chap. t] 7,377] 2,053 | 2,442 | 2,796 | 3,021) 3,482) 3,917| 4,516) 5,896) 8,039) 9,279| 9,357
Rishworth 6,557 960 | 7,217 | 1,588 1,536, 1,710| 1,540) 1,244) 1,143) 1,110 982 915

Township

Shelf Township] 7,303] 7,306 | 7,553 | 1,998 | 2,674] 3,050) 3,474] 3,062| 3,097| 2,754) 2,612) 2,500

Skircoat 1,330 | 2,338 | 2,823 | 3,323 | 4,060| 5,237| 6,940) 7,447| 10,062] 11,405| 13,136| 15,186
Township

ac See note 82 above.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

PaRIsH. aoe r8or | r81z | x182r | 1831 | 184x | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 1891 | Igor
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
MorleyWapentake
(cont.)
Halifax (cont.):—
Southowram 2,546] 3,148 | 3,615 | 4,256 | 5,751 | 6,478 | 7,380 | 7,245 | 8,210 | 8,813 | 9,392 |10,605
Township
Sowerby 6,894] 4,275 | 5,177 | 6,890 | 6,457 | 8,163 | 7,908 | 8,753 | 9,271 9,462 | 9,348 | 8,772
Township
Soyland 4,265| 1,888 | 2,519 | 3,242 | 3,589 | 3,603 | 3,422 | 3,373 | 3,264 | 3,467 3,308 | 3,135
Township
Stainland with | 2,336] 1,800 | 2,077 | 2,814 | 3,037 | 3,759 | 4,173 | 4,657 | 4,724 | 4,933 | 5,002 | 4,516
Old Lindley
Township
Stansfield 6,331| 4,768 5,447 | 7,275 | 8,262 | 8,466 | 7,627 | 8,174 | 8,977 |10,608 |11,266 11,685
Township
Wadsworth 11,224] 2,801 | 3,473 | 4,509 | 5,198 | 5,583 | 4,497 4,141 | 4,373 | 4,707 | 5,337 | 6,539
Township
Warley 4,025| 3,546 | 3,958 | 4,982 | 5,685 | 6,857 | 6,408 | 6,482 | 7,682 | 8,365 | 9,249 |10,175
Township
Osgoldcross
Wapentake—
Lower Division
Adlingfleet ¢ :— 5:536] 437 461 431 478 448 487 480 529 452 483 437
Adlingfleet 1,768 203 223 256 218 199 226 225 266 195 217 170
Township
Fockerby 910 84 86 106 103 92 107 108 88 81 82 74
Township ¢
Eastoft 1,439 82 90 90 89 85 110 100
Township t
Haldenby Garo le PO PS OR) OE gel ga ee ae] or) Re cee
Township ¢
Kellington :— 7,482] 1,048 | 1,151 | 1,328 | 1,388 | 1,493 | 1,450 | 1,443 | 1,427 | 1,438 | 1,447 | 1,369
Beal or Beaghall] 7,879 384 432 546 563 568 527 488 431 414 398 396
Township
Egborough 2,000 186 207 215 220 229 254 299 330 306 325 268
Township
Kellington 1,761 253 248 283 295 324 320 300 305 309 317 326
Township
Whitley 1,842 225 264 284 310 372 355 356 367 409 407 379
Township
Snaith 29,915] 4,565 | 5,095 | 6,134 | 7,722 | 9,642 |10,581 |12,020 |13,875 [16,592 |21,615 |22,884
(part of) 4 + :—-
Airmyn Chap. {| 3,707] 397 451 570 567 593 561 557 554 493 | 1,091 | 2,326
Balne 2,866] 312 310 329 343 341 362 367 358 358 348 332
Township t
Cowick 709 656 905 928 882 919 849 872 = — nt
Township
Goole Township] 4,838] 294 | 348 | 450 | 1,671 | 2,850 | 2,960 | 3,479 | 4,186 | 4,823 | 4,853 | 4,649
Gowdall 1,199 218 227 243 260 237 229 223 220 203 237 193
Township
Heck 1,677 194 215 228 236 265 252 278 268 226 197 189
Township +
Hensall 1077 213 225 233 250 290 252 264 299 358 305 305
Township t
Hook Chap. . .] 2,007 248 348 363 650 | 1,221 ) 2,159 | 2,958 | 4,014 | 6,364 10,882 10,968
Pollington 1,920 378 429 483 482 585 495 501 467 387 376 350
Township ¢
seas it 4,668 920 | 1,143 | 1,496 | 1,450 | 1,523 | 1,552 | 1,630 | 1,646 | 1,650 | 1,730 | 1,926
ap.
Snaith 5,862] 688 743 834 885 855 840 914 991 | 1,730 | 1,596 | 1,616
_ Township * t
Whitgift :— 9,162] 1,622 | 1,844 | 2,202 | 2,252 | 2,353 | 2,394 | 2,298 | 2,436 | 2,299 | 2,162 | 2,018
Ousefleet 2,169 207 223 253 243 228 227 233 215 210 243 200
Township
Reedness 3,083} 520 567 683 644 633 663 607 576 494 397 472
Townshipt

44 See note g2 above.

5 Snaith Township includes the area, and the population (1881-1901), of Cowick Township.

534

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-
age

PaRISH Bor | 1811 | 1821 | 183r | 1841 | 185x | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 1891 | Igor

WEST RIDING
(cont.)

Osgoldcross
Wapentake—
Lower Division
(cont.)
Whitgift (comt.) :-—

SwinefleetChap.t] 2,472] 632] 770 | 956 | 1,055 | 1,145 | 1,152 | 1,149 | 1,319 | 1,233 | 1,236 | 1,118

Whitgift 1,438] 263 | 290] 310| 310] 347| 352] 315 | 326} 362| 286 | 228
Township
Womersley + :— | 7,857] 740 | 752] 746] 843] 921 | 998] 996] 1,053] 939] 903) 861
Cridling Stubbs | 7 356 83 94 96 1718 159 139 154 227 200 210 217
Township
Smeaton, Little, | 7,238 179 172 176 222 233 235 238 194 215 201 180
Township t¢
Walden Stubbs | 7,272 127 174 158 139 137 165 159 172 148 150 132
Township +
Womersley 3,997 351 312 316 364 392 459 445 460 376 342 338
Township t
Osgoldcross
Wapentake—
Upper Division
Ackworth . . .| 2,645] 1,432 | 1,322 | 1,575 | 1,660 | 1,828 | 1,835 | 1,813 | 1,846 | 2,222 | 2,647 | 3,304
Badsworth:— 30971] 544} 581 | 728] 782|) 750] 792| 744] 595] 742] 702| 679
Badsworth 1,547 182 196 200 198 200 222 219 190 226 206 189
Township
Thorpe Audlin 7,310] 200 219 344 355 315 315 304 202 257 251 263
Township
Upton Township] 7,774 162 166 184 229 235 255 221 203 259 245 227
Burghwallist . .] 1,921] 182 207 237 223 217 226 226 230 226 194 173
Campsall ¢ :— 10,495] 1,441 | 1,611 | 1,898 | 1,974 | 2,177 | 2,126 | 1,959 | 1,939 | 1,997 | 1,930 | 1,877
Askern 849 —_ 113 159 256 468 382 379 457 548 593 562
Township ° ¢ ¢
Campsall 1,776) 317 393 389 386 385 393 349 327 306 317 298
Township t
Fenwick 2,371 240 252 295 286 262 270 244 197 196 168 185
Township

Moss Townshipt] 2,475] 226 190 242 269 301 298 242 258 266 253 235
Norton Township] 2,322] 479 558 668 643 628 659 633 600 589 500 512

Sutton 762 179 105 145 134 133 124 112 100 92 99 85
Township

Castleford f :-— 1,645] 1,175 | 1,299 | 1,434 | 1,587 | 1,850 | 2,581 | 4,365 | 7,149 |11,579 |15,620 |20,336

Castleford 564 793 890 | 1,022 | 1,147 | 1,414 | 2,150 | 3,876 | 6,268 |10,530 |14,143 |17,386
Township

Glass Houghton | 7,087 382 409 412 446 436 431 489 881 | 1,049 | 1,477 | 2,950
Township

Darrington :— 4,744] 480! 444 619 619 | 668] 617 744 | 626] 643 625 617

Darrington 3,710] 379 373 510 512 530 492 614 512 523 525 527
Township

Stapleton 1,634 107 71 109 107 138 125 130 114 120 100 90
Township

Featherstone 2,402} 482 492 581 588 572 616 616 | 1,740 | 3,953 | 5,344 | 9,817
(part of) ;—

Featherstone 7,382 305 320 337 328 318 347 353 | 1,222 | 3,247 | 4,132 | 7,822
Township

Purston Jaglin 7,020 177 172 244 260 254 269 263 518 706 | 1,212 | 1,995
Township

Ferry Fryston 3,187] 705 768 777 833 951 908 904 g20 | 1,131 | 1,880 | 2,176

with Water

Fryston

Kirk Bramwith t .] 1,334] 214 224 252 211 251 231 226 182 181 149 211

Kirk Smeaton . .] 1,700] 248 297 321 318 326 372 333 341 380 292 312

Kirkby, seany? 7,054] 1,171 | 1,255 | 1,314 | 1,478 | 1,505 | 1,394 | 1,273 | 1,286 | 1,581 | 2,605 | 4,565
art Oo _—

wine North, | 2,777 223 248 113 256 287 267 236 216 287 394 495
Township

6 Askevn Townshif.—The population in 1801 was included with that of Sutton Township, and in 1841 131 visitors
were present for the purpose of benefiting from the mineral waters. 6a See note 85 above.
7 South Kirkby Parish is situated in Osgoldcross Wapentake—Upper Division—and in Strafforth and Tickhill

Wapentake—North Division.

535

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-
ParisH age
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Osgoldcross
Wapentake—
Upper Division
(cont.)
Kirkby, South (part
of) (cont.) :—
Elmsall, South, | 7,426
Township
Kirkby, South, | 2,362
Township
Skelbrooke 1,149
Chap. f
Owston ¢ :— 2,746
Owston 1,815
Township t
Skellow 931
Township
Pontefract ¢ :— 1284
Carleton 589
Township f
Hardwick, East, 528
Township
KnottingleyChap] 7,484
Monkhill 5
Township
Pontefract 2,381
Township ® ¢
Tanshelf 297
Township t
Pontefract Park 1,395
Extra Par. t
Wragby 2,515
(part of) ® ¢ :—
Hardwick, West, 487
Township
Hessle 645
Township t
Hill Top 242
Township t
Huntwick with | 7,747
Foulby and
Nostell Town-
ship t
Shyrack Wapen-
take—Lower
Division
Aberford { :— 4,230
Aberford 1,580
Township
Parlington 1,773
Township
Sturton, or 877
Sturton Grange,
Township
Bardsey + :— 3404
Bardsey cum Rig-] 2,757
ton Township
Wothersome 653
Township t¢
Barwick-in- 8,449
Elmet ¢ :-—4
Barwick-in- 6,966
Elmet
Township +
Roundhay 1,483
Township

1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 Igor
348 | 378| 453| 494| 518) 505] 468| 440| 526| 620| 1,026
509 | 539) 633 | 615 | 602| 506| 482| 522| 634 | 1,434 | 2,916
91 90} 115} 113 | 104| 116 87 | 108| 134| 157| 128
230| 236| 306| 292| 305| 236| 260] 274| 289| 306| 257
105 | 126 | 146] 181} 206| 187} 185 | 143 | 164] 135 | 143
6,189 | 7,493 | 8,824 | 9,254 | 9,851 |10,675 |10,971 |10,967 |14,363 |15,561 |19,726
112| 109) 132| 155 | 179| 214| 197 | 284) 334 | 317} 407
— 81 96} 139] 149} 152| 213] 282} 228) 193| 155
2,602 | 3,327 | 3,753 | 3,666 | 4,304 | 4,540 | 4,379 | 4,039 | 5,069 | 5,425 | 5,809
40 39 48 62 66 69 a

gi024 | 3/008 | 4447 | 4,832 | 4,669 | 5,706 | 5,346 | 5,372 | 6,335 iia soil
378 | 371 | 356 | 423) 502] 601} 776 | 921 | 2,317 | 2,544 | 3,920
47 50 47 51 96 84 74 70 66 76 72
_ 298 | 378) 447) 518| 431] 438} 822} 851 | 874] 743
_ 99 93 85 | 102 94 86 80 56 33 20
— 128| 139| 134 | 172| 119] 125| 128] 119

_— 71 97 86 92 80 82 a2) gop tf 22% | 77
—_ _— 49) 142; 152| 138| 145 | 522| 575) 644| 556
aoo'||” aa | ora | eae | Gee | sar | 9ee'| were | Gnd gee | ee
180 | 203 | 229| 207] 212} 197| 1795 | 213| 217| 192] 197
64 70 92 74 77 62 55 54 55 53 42
tea} Sea) deg] Ge Gen) aoe | age | tee ek, | ee) oes
15 15 16 21 19 21 23 24 41 43 28
1,454 | 1,553 | 1,667 | 1,922 | 2,275 | 2,449 | 2,374 | 2,467 | 3,017 | 3,368 | 4,862
7,370 | 1,423 | 1,487 | 1,608 | 7,836 | 1,939 | 1,804 | 1,884 | 2,215 | 2,406 | 3,020
84) 130| 186| 314 | 439| 510| 570; 583| 802)| 962 | 1,842

8 Pontefract Township includes Pontefract Castle Precincts—formerly Extra Parochial.

* Wragby Parish is situated in Osgoldcross Wapentake—Upper Division—and in Staincross Wapentake.

536

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

PariIsH oo Bor | 1811 | 182z | 1831 | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | I901

WEST RIDING
(cont.)

Skyrack Wapen-
take—Lower
Division (cont.)
Collingham™ }. .] 1,881] 287 | 326] 286] 347] 324] 310] 309} 318} 329] 334 355

Garforth. . . «J 1,519] 234} 610] 731 | 782 | 1,195 | 1,335 | 1,504 | 1,679 | 2,213 | 2,545 | 3,224
Harewood

(part of) %> :—
Keswick, East, | 1,290] 535 267 296 365 465 452 468 437 447 454 418
; Township
Kippax :— 3,616] 1,523 | 1,573 | 1,765 | 1,901 | 2,171 | 2,339 | 2,901 | 4,120 | 5,624 | 6,600 | 8,154
Allerton Bywater 945 337 292 329 375 490 550 704 | 1,006 | 1,565 | 2,009 | 3,195
Township t¢
Kippax 1,632) 779| 860} 958 | 1,128 | 1,214 | 1,325 | 1,656 | 2,074 | 2,533 | 3,040 | 3,564
Township ¢ ;
Preston, Great 1,039 413 421 478 398 467 464 547 | 1,100 | 1,526 | 1,557 | 1,395
and Little,
Township
Swillington t . .[ 2,625] 491 492 510 523 565 607 | 662 890 823 886 863
Thorner 7° + :— 4,888] 774 882 | 1,010 | 1,220 | 1,426 | 1,530 | 1,500 | 1,627 | 2,329 | 2,195 | 2,331
Scarcroft 1,073 70 74 105 168 218 238 292 336 290 280 287
Township
Shadwell 1,499 147 187 197 248 278 347 399 454 | 1,107 | 1,075 | 1,154
Township +
Thorner 2,316 563 627 708 804 930 957 809 837 938 840 890
Township t
Whitkirk ¢ :— 7,072] 1,800 | 1,893 | 2,227 | 2,564 | 2,636 | 3,041 | 3,316 | 3,618 | 4,370 | 3,833 | 4,386
Austhorpe 855 103 150 150 169 173 219 231 236 313 194 186
Township
Seacroft 1,834 659 762 886 918 | 1,020 | 1,093 | 1,235 | 1,230 | 1,367 | 1,100 | 1,362
Township +
Templenewsam | 4,089] 7,033 976 | 1,166 | 1,458 | 1,428 | 1,693 | 1,806 | 2,173 | 2,667 | 2,497 | 2,818
Township
Thorp Stapleton 294 5 5 25 19 15 36 44 39 29 48 20
Township
Skyrack Wapen-
take—Upper
Division
Adel :— 7,160] 966 | 996 | 1,028 | 1,063 | 1,219 | 1,050 | 1,145 | 1,357 | 1,639 | 1,602 | 1,472
Adel cum Eccup | 4,894 606 652 699 703 883 682 807 970 | 1,190 | 1,167 | 1,045
Township
Arthington 2,266) 360 344 329 360 336 368 344 387 449 441 427
Township f
Bingley :— 14,109] 4,938 | 5,769 | 7,375 | 9,255 |£1,850 /15,339 [15,367 |18,116 |20,703 |21,418 |22,890
Bingley (with [70,336] 4,700 | 4,782 | 6,176 | 8,036 |10,157 |13,437 |13,254 |15,952 |18,437 |19,284 |20,889
Micklethwaite)
Township
Morton 3,773| 838 | 987 | 1,199 | 1,279 | 1,693 | 1,902 | 2,113 | 2,764 | 2,266 | 2,134 | 2,007
Township
Guiseley :— 8,931] 5,849 | 6,813 | 8,409 |10,028 |12,274 |14,017 |14,874 |16,876 |20,083 |21,758 |22,691
Carlton 1,291 115 135 158 187 205 185 192 184 90 104 109
Township
Guiseley 1,555) 825 | 959 | 1,273 | 1,604 | 1,977 | 2,572 | 2,566 | 3,185 | 3,706 | 4,079 | 4,558
Township

Horsforth ‘Chap.| 2,800] 2,099 | 2,375 | 2,824 | 3,425 | 4,788 | 4,584 | 5,287 | 5,465 | 6,346 | 7,102 | 7,784
Rawdon Chap. t| 1,567] 7,775 | 7,450 | 7,759 | 2,057 | 2,537 | 2,567 | 2,576 | 2,796 | 3,407 | 3,077 | 3,181

Yeadon 1,724| 1,695 | 1,954 | 2,455 | 2,761 | 3,379 | 4,109 | 4,259 | 5,246 | 6,534 | 7,396 | 7,059
Township

Harewood 8,213] 1,182 | 1,377 | 1,485 | 1,515 | 1,645 | 1,481 | 1,401 | 1,310 | 1,759 | 1,324 | 1,206
(part of) 74 :—

Alwoodley 1,508 143 132 142 142 281 164 140 136 448 175 147
Township

Harewood 3,660] 707 771 849 894 890 895 834 765 716 704 580
Township

9a See note 94 above. 9% See note 100 above

10 Thoyney Pavish.—The increase in population in 1881 was partly due to the temporary presence of workmen
engaged in constructing waterworks for the Leeds Corporation. | ;

11 Adel cum Eccup Township.—The 1841 population included ninety-six strangers employed by the Leeds Waterworks
Company. lla See note 100 above.

3 537 68

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

PaRISH sg r8or | 1811 | 1821 | 183r | 184x | 1851 | 186r | 187x | 1881 | 1891 | tgor
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Shyrack Wapen-
take—Upper
Division (cont.)
Harewood (part of)
(cont.) :-—
Weardley 871 139 190 191 169 158 144 171 157 154 144 177
Township
Wigton 1,296 134 171 164 168 170 147 130 138 299 193 193
Township
Wike Township 878 59 113 139 142 146 131 126 114 142 108 109
Ilkley(part of)4” :—
Ilkley Township | 3,816] 426] 459] 496] 691 | 778) 811 | 1,043 | 2,511 | 4,736 | 5,767 | 7,455
Otley(part of) ¥* :—414,745 | 6,024 | 7,271 | 8,539 | 9,404 |10,285 [11,546 [12,318 [14,714 [17,033 |19,437 [23,017
Baildon Chap. t] 2,607] 1,779 | 2,073 | 2,679 | 3,044 | 3,280 | 3,008 | 3,895 | 4,784 | 5,430 | 5,785 | 5,797
Bramhope 1,396] 267 318 366 359 350 391 312 327 408 389 430
Township
Burley Chap. 3,136| 842 | 1,175 | 1,200 | 1,448 | 1,736 | 1,894 | 2,136 | 2,271 | 2,550 | 2,661 | 3,370
Esholt Township} 697 268 } 582 355 404 443 397 369 398 388 305 310
Hawksworth 2,465) 227 323 327 339 295 237 245 215 163 195
Township
Menston 1,128 193 217 257 346 329 449 318 455 662 | 1,742 | 3,137
Township
Otley Township .] 2,370] 2,332 | 2,602 3,065 | 3,161 | 3,445 | 4,751 | 4,714 | 5,855 | 6,806 | 7,838 | 9,230
Pool Township . 952 182 304 294 315 363 367 337 385 574 554 608
Stainclf and
Ewcross Wap-
entake—East
Division
Addingham . 3,203} 1,157 | 1,471 | 1,570 ) 2,179 | 1,753 | 1,558 | 1,859 | 1,838 | 2,163 | 2,225 | 2,144
Amcliffe
(part of) 19 :—
Buckden 16,088} 280 326 382 309 387 34 335 333 297 239 236
Township
bindesaasy 6,306] 1,401 | 1,661 | 2,350 | 2,724 | 2,844 | 2,828 | 3,478 | 3,819 | 4,628 | 4,808 | 7,193
or Gill: —
Barnoldswick 2,730 769 892 | 1,334 | 1,682 | 7,849 | 1,938 | 2,810 | 3,187 | 4,028 | 4,131 | 6,382
Township
Brogden with 1,782 189 158 233 229 219 179 122 105 110 120 98
Admergill
Township
CoatesTownship] 634 45 108 97 88 101 138 122 131 99 70 98
Salterforth 1,760 398 503 686 725 675 573 424 396 391 487 615
Township
Bracewell}. . .] 2,026] 173 185 176 160 153 157 140 115 105 130 115
Broughton in 4,152] 380 581 427 407 407 335 274 268 259 257 245
Airedale { :—
Broughton 2,402) — = = —| 219} 203| 162| 188| 177| 165)| 165
Township
Elslack Hamlet | 7,750 _— —~ _— — 188 132 112 80 82 92 80
Burnsall :— 130,640] 1,360 | 1,418 | 1,423 | 1,385 | 1,484 | 1,279 | 1,275 | 1,262 | 1,129 934 963
Appletreewick 7,699 244 309 312 425 467 305 354 358 287 229 250
Township
Burnsall with 2,965] 289 272 329 242 284 251 253 206 188 155 142
Thorpe-sub-
Montem
Township
Conistone with 8,650 182 157 137 162 172 178 160 186 179 116 141
Kilnsey
Chap.
Cracoe Town- 2,098 131 162 179 150 153 159 139 135 127 91 117
ship
Hartlington 1,352 105 120 141 115 96 76 107 95 82 61 71
Township
Hetton with 4,639 172 212 180 176 197 187 155 164 142 146 119
Boardley
Township
Rilstone Chap. 3,237 177 192 145 115 127 123 107 118 130 136 123

Ub See note 2 above.
12 Arnclife Parish is situated in Staincliff and Ewcross Wapentake—East and West Divisions

538

lc See note 3 above.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-

ParisH gee 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 Igor
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Stainclif and Ew-
cross Wapen-
take—East
Division (cont.)
Carlton . . . . 45,259] 845 | 1,002 | 1,218 | 1,265 | 1,242 | 1,333 | 1,506 | 1,678 | 1,691 | 1,644 | 1,605
Gargrave :— 11,667] 1,342 | 1,469 | 1,659 | 1,748 | 1,761 | 1,831 | 1,641 | 1,814 | 1,916 | 2,017 | 1,823
Bank Newton 2,339 68 102 139 125 129 120 106 87 100 90 92
Township
Cold Conistone 1,337 342 257 345 336 242 289 238 266 337 392 279
Township
EshtonTownship| 7,773 84 63 69 82 74 84 87 60 64 76 93
Flasby with 4,337 120 150 134 143 140 124 113 110 128 163 98
Winterburn
Township
Gargrave i 2,547 728 897 972 | 1,062 | 1,176 | 1,214 | 1,103 | 1,297 | 1,287 | 1,296 | 1,267
: ship
Keighley =... |10,132] 5,745 | 6,864 | 9,223 |11,176 |13,413 |18,259 [18,819 |24,704 [30,395 [36,176 |42,106
Kettlewell with 8,409] 634 361 663 673 685 607 | 646] 498 378 313 283
___ Starbotton f
Kildwick :— 22,535] 5,785 | 6,882 | 8,437 | 9,756 |10,475 |11,712 |10,893 111,717 |12,073 |13,481 |14,829
Bradleys Both 1,957 385 412 506 614 557 571 442 487 514 542 609
Township
Cononley ahs 1,455 1,159 | 1,272 905 | 1,012 829 887 786
ship
Farnbill Town: | 543 S78 | LOGS) TAS!) F087 Veg | say] ang | woo ser || eee | G20
ship
Cowling ROG 4,712] 1,140 | 1,449 | 1,870 | 2,249 | 2,458 | 2,305 | 1,815 | 1,928 | 1,907 | 1,828 | 1,925
ship
Glusburn bois 1,527] 533 654 787 987 | 1,052 | 1,320 | 1,475 | 1,570 | 1,629 | 1,942 | 2,397
ship
Kildwick Town- 873 209 216 175 190 189 206 170 161 160 145 146
ship
Silsden Chap. f | 7,060] 7,323 | 1,608 | 7,904 | 2,137 | 2,346 | 2,508 | 2,582 | 2,714 | 3,329 | 3,866 | 4,304
Steeton with 2,066 510 545 753 859 963 | 1,289 | 1,347 | 1,637 | 1,508 | 1,687 | 2,070
Eastburn
Township ¢
Sutton Town- | 2,348] 809] 953 | 1,092 | 1,153 | 1,292 | 7,660 | 1,699 | 1,724 | 1,642 | 1,935 | 1,966
ship t

Kirby in Malham-
dale (part of) 18 :—
Calton Township] 1,451] 98 89) 76 79} 79 75 56} 52) 59 75 54

Linton f :— 13,241} 1,491 | 1,772 | 1,910 | 2,113 | 2,060 | 2,221 | 1,911 | 1,557 | 1,224 925 975

Grassington 5,806 763 892 983 | 1,067 | 1,056 | 7,738 | 1,075 830 617 480 494
Township

Hebden Town- 3,582 341 402 377 491 480 460 435 362 313 209 199
ship

Linton Township] 7,205 186 294 313 343 303 352 284 179 127 117 158

Threshfield 2,648 207 184 237 212 221 271 177 186 167 119 124
Township

Marton f 2,805] 322 348 382 443 381 341 256 237 235 270 234

Skipton(part of)! :Jo4'767 3,698 | 4,436 | 5,206 | 5,935 | 6,606 | 6,770 | 7,364 | 8,122 |11,403 |12,110 |13,804
Barden Town- 7,362 191 206 219 214 212 208 371 382 391 173 153

ship
Bolton Abbey 2,072 120 105 127 112 127 109 112 122 142 169 142
Township
Draughton 2,500 173 246 279 223 211 188 178 178 178 204 205
Township

Embsay with 4,446| 623| 692] 867| 891| 962] 948 | 1,028 | 71,104 | 1,167 | 940 | 1,022
Eastby Town-

ship
Halton, East, 1,078 152 170 141 144 120 91 94 78 277 85 102
Township
Skipton Town- | 4,204] 2,305 | 2,868 | 3,411 | 4,187 | 4,842 | 5,044 | 5,454 | 6,078 | 9,097 |10,376 |11,986
ship
Stirton with 3,105 134 149 168 170 132 182 127 180 157 163 194
Thorlby
Township
Phere 5,437] 1,202 | 1,546 | 1,829 | 2,246 | 2,354 | 2,202 | 2,112 | 2,053 | 2,322 | 2,770 | 4,411
raven

18 Kirby in Malhamdale Parish is situated in Staincliff and Ewcross Wapentake—East and West Divisions.
18a See note 4 above.

539

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

PARISH ne 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 | 1891 1901
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Stainclifand Ew-
cross Wapen-
take—West
Division
Arncliffe (part 18,001} 563 512 491 484 447 413 405 348 362 320 276
of)8> ¢ :—
Arncliffe Town- | 3,789] 247 200 189 213 182 165 174 136 147 137 113
ship t
Halton Gill Chap.] 7,867 139 141 114 88 90 77 83 84 86 77 74
Hawkswick 3,028 69 72 86 81 68 57 55 69 51 45 39
Township +
Litton Township] 3,923] 114 99 102 102 107 114 93 59 78 61 50
Bentham ™ :— 25,233] 2,593 | 2,922 | 3.404 | 3,407 | 3,535 | 3534 | 31589 | 4,778 | 3,836 | 3,841 | 4,062
Bentham Town-| 7,724] 1,487 | 1,654 | 2,102 | 2,179 | 2,180 | 2,143 | 2,342 | 2,237 | 2,211 | 2,273 | 2,390
ship

Ingleton Chap. |77,509| 1,106 | 1,268 | 1,302 | 7,228 | 1,355 | 1,391 | 1,247 | 2,541 | 1,625 | 1,568 | 1,672
Bolton by Bow- 5,943} 996 | 1,072 | 1,205 | 1,174 | 933] 962] 739] 708] 702] $71) 596

land f

Clapham t :— 25,303| 1,693 | 1,706 | 1,889 | 1,909 | 1,853 | 1,944 | 1,708 | 1,421 | 1,450 | 1,441 | 1,381

Clapham-cum- {72,047 847 872 982 944 890 914 809 695 676 712 680
Newby Town-
ship

Lawkland 5,812] 368 351 351 364 379 338 313 301 307 274

Township t } 834 {

Austwick Town- | 7,450 478 556 614 599 651 567 413 473 422 427
shipt

Giggleswick :— [18,509] 2,461 | 2,760 | 3,237 | 3,567 | 4,131 | 3,965 | 3,187 | 4,340 | 4,298 | 4,368 | 4,339

Giggleswick 4,348 556 674 746 780 875 855 727 874 976 | 1,015 981
Township

Langcliffe Town-] 2,553 260 332 420 S50 664 607 376 665 683 681 613
ship

Rathmell Town- | 3,420 306 319 328 347 290 308 304 248 219 216 214
ship

Settle Township | 4,492] 7,736 | 1,753 | 1,508 | 1,627 | 2,041 | 1,976 | 1,586 | 2,163 | 2,213 | 2,253 | 2,302

Stainforth 3,696 203 282 235 263 261 225 194 390 207 203 229
Township

Gisburn :— 18,145 | 1,959 | 2,209 | 2,530 | 2,306 } 2,191 | 1,976 | 1,756 | 1,345 | 1,536 | 1,350 | 1,255

Gisburn Town- 1,998 485 509 690 607 543 518 534 365 527 444 415

ship .

Gisburn Forest 4,861 396 439 457 400 372 336 301 245 254 240 211

Township

HortonTownship] 2,027 144 181 187 200 156 152 129 701 94 95 74
Middop, or Mid- } 7,762 87 95 100 62 81 55 57 57 64 50 42
hope, Township

Nappa Town- 578 32 23 44 43 35 21 31 25 21 32 24
ship

Newsholme, or 752 78 70 75 70 55 53 52 40 48 40 41

Newsome,

Township

Paythorne 2,638 198 240 242 187 2071 206 126 122 100 105 128
Township

Rimington 3,084 487 596 698 701 722 607 507 3771 387 321 290
Township

Swinden Town- | 7,057 52 56 37 36 26 28 25 19 47 23 30
ship

Horton in Pera 17,274] 570 531 558 567 520; 467 417 | 916 526 666 688
eet

Kirby in Malham- [22,335] 863 | 932] 929! 954 868 | 809] 826 878 762 753 719
dale (part of)? :
Airton Township} 2,559 139 176 187 179 217 225 2356 244 203 212 221
Hanlith Town- 966 87 af 46 42 25 36 40 33 34 26 30
ship
Kirby-in-Mal- 1,148 167 175 204 219 195 139 128 174 145 107 106
hamdale ;
Township
Malham Town- | 4,287 262 306 262 259 233 188 184 164 148 163 140
ship

13b See note 12 above.

14 Bentham Parish —The population in 1871 included a large number of labourers engaged in railway construction.

18 Horton in Ribblesdale Parish—The population in 1871 included a large number of labourers engaged in railway
construction. 15a See note 13 above.

540

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-
PaRISH age r8or | 181x | 1821 | 1831 | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | I90r

WEST RIDING
(cont.)

Staincliffand Ew-
cross Wapentake
—West Division

(cont.)

Kirby in Malham-
dale (part of)
(cont.) :—

Malham Moor {70,973 98 97 88 94 102 92 115 124 126 118 102
Township
Otterburn Town-] 7,728 26 47 40 66 48 54 59 54 39 47 54
ship

Scosthrop Town-| 7,274 90 80 102 95 48 75 64 85 67 80 66
ship

Mitton (part of)!®:— [13,345 | 2,160 | 2,722 | 3,048 | 2,821 | 2,403 | 2,203 | 1,903 | 1,815 | 1,815 | 1,780 | 1,899

Bashall Eaves 3,807 358 348 310 279 259 251 242 263 233 222
Township 552
Bradford, West, | 7,957 564 522 366 355 289 327 311 314 331
Township 1.088
eee 2,074 481 s 687 624 644 580 513 466 447 510 583
ap.
ee 3,780} 927 | 1,022 | 1,125 | 1,103 902 826 666 609 623 579 617
hap.

Mitton, Great, 1,727 200 254 324 262 212 183 184 171 171 144 146
Township :

Preston, Long :— [13,562] 1,361 | 1,426 | 1,681 | 1,672 | 1,568 | 1,341 | 1,206 | 1,246 | 1,486 | 1,674 | 1,861

Halton, West, 2,291 780 171 190 171 166 122 137 126 142 132 119

Township
Hellifield 3,402 237 252 279 250 273 279 272 226 424 601 779
Township }
Preston, Long, 3,578 573 670 733 808 708 590 536 622 706 734 7671
Township
Wigglesworth | 4,297] 377 | 393| 479| 443 | 421| 350) 267| 272| 214| 207| 202
Township es
Sawley, Extra Par.] 2,106 3 ol 254 211 178 157 | 146
Tosside, Extra Par.} 1,113 } 552 564 561 588 ee oo os 82 66 69 85
Sedbergh :— 52,675 } 3.983 | 4,116 | 4,483 | 4,711 | 4,836 | 4,574 | 4,391 | 4,990 | 4,079 | 4,040 | 3,035
Dent Chap. _. 120,895] 7,773 | 7,663 | 1,782 | 1,840 | 1,887 | 1,630 | 1,427 | 2,096 | 1,209 | 1,131 | 1,076
Garsdale Chap.t ]77,068 571 648 679 657 687 709 618 917 602 535 429
Sedbergh 120,712] 1,639 | 1,805 | 2,022 | 2,214 | 2,268 | 2,235 | 2,346 | 1,983 | 2,268 | 2,374 | 2,430
Township
Slaidburn :— 39,987] 1,908 | 2,175 | 2,223 | 2,065 | 1,792 | 1,682 | 1,480 | 1,615 | 1,358 | 1,247 | 1,115
Bowland Forest, |79,744 523 468 237 177 187 173 169 287 231 229 192
High, Town-
ship
Easington 9,203 376 451 507 424 409 352 338 347 299 262 276
Township
Newton 5,867 378 498 581 544 461 449 394 403 331 315 266
Township
Slaidburn 5,173 637 758 904 920 741 708 579 590 497 441 381
Township
Thornton in Lons- | 9,040] 1,060 | 1,152 | 1,281 | 1,152 993 | 1,130 | 1,038 | 1,081 946 884 854
dale (part
of) 8 ¢:—
Burton-in-Lons- | 7,555 _ = 746 711 629 718 597 696 626 589 554

dale or Black
Burton Town-
ship ¢
Thornton-in- 7,485 _ = 535 447 364 412 441 385 320 295 300
Lonsdale
Township t¢
Whalley
(part of) 19 :—
Bowland Forest, | 5,501 — _— 360 344 330 335 319 344 304 242 280
Low, Township

16 Mitton Pavish.—The remainder is in Lancashire—Lower Division of Blackburn Hundred.

17 Great Mitton Township.—The 1801 population is estimated.

18 Thornton in Lonsdale Parish—The remainder is in Lancashire—Lonsdale Hundred (South of the Sands).

19 Whalley Pavish—The remainder is in Lancashire—Upper and Lower Divisions of Blackburn Hundred. The
population of Bowland Forest Low Township in 1801 and 1811 is included in that given for Slaidburn Parish (Bowland

Forest High Township).
541

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParisH ee 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 | 1871 | 1881 1891 1901
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Staincross
Wapentake
Cawthorne 3,709] 1,055 | 1,208 | 1,518 | 1,492 | 1,437 | 1,254 | 1,283 | 1,234 | 1,166 | 1,175 | 1,059
ee 5” 5,040] 1,340 | 1,777 | 2,384 | 3,706 | 5,026 | 5,805 | 7,153 | 8,173 /11,776 [14,399 |16,270
part of) 0 :—
Ardsley 1,259 461 704 992 | 1,029 | 1,226 | 1,528 | 1,772 | 2,143 | 3,333 | 4,494 | 5,934
Township
Worsborough | 3,787] 879 | 1,073 | 1,392 | 2,677 | 3,800 | 4,277 | 5,381 | 6,030 | 8,443 | 9,905 10,336
Chap.
Darton :— 4,361] 1,699 | 1,884 | 2,176 | 2,960 | 3,583 | 3,565 | 4,592 | 5,197 | 6,014 | 7,013 | 7,670
Barugh 1,438] 362 | 422} 396| 946 | 7,266 | 1,385 | 1,777 | 2,030 | 2,444 | 2,752 | 2,677
Township
DartonTownship] 7,379] 936 | 7,080 | 1,340 | 1,466 | 1,692 | 1,603 | 2,276 | 2,582 | 2,960 | 3,679 | 4,457
Kexbrough 1,544 401 382 440 548 625 577 605 585 610 582 536
Township
Felkirk :— 6,068} 1,034 | 1,063 | 1,042 | 1,156 | 1,186 | 1,148 | 1,106 | 1,109 | 1,766 | 2,143 | 3,808
Brierley 2,590} 415 443 452 483 491 467 491 386 484 504 | 1,698
Township t
Havercroft with | 7,364 180 162 189 153 141 112 109 133 486 516 490
Cold Hiendley
Township
Hiendley, South, } 7,297 265 276 166 272 290 321 282 329 366 550 878
Township
Shafton 823 174 182 2a3 248 264 248 224 267 430 573 742
Township ¢
Hemswortht . .| 4,163] 803] 811 | 963] 937 | 1,005 | 997) 975 | 993 | 1,665 | 2,887 | 6,283
Bone ioe 3,385 | 1,689 | 1,832 | 2,417 | 2,492 3,579 | 4,190 | 4,170 | 4,255 | 6,258 | 6,667 | 6,592
igh f :—
Clayton, West, | 7,742] 668 | 665 | 854 | 887 | 1,440 | 1,566 | 1,532 | 1,531 | 1,435 | 1,547 | 1,550
Township
Cumberworth 1,392] 751 | 950 | 1,295 | 1,374 | 1,867 | 2,384 | 2,414 | 2,485 | 4,591 | 4,895 | 4,851
Township” +
Hoyland, High, 857 270 217 268 231 272 240 224 239 232 231 197
Township
Penistone ¢ :— 22,773] 3,081 | 4,231 | 5,042 | 5,201 | 5,907 | 6,302 | 7,149 | 8,110 | 9,094 | 9,482 |11,160
Denby 2,885] 7,067 | 1,132 | 1,412 | 1,295 | 1,690 | 1,709 | 1,813 | 1,637 | 1,559 | 1,667 | 1,765
Township t¢
Gunthwaite 952 117 119 86 99 66 77 87 83 70 68 57
Township
Hunshelf 2,465 327 429 436 537 578 729 | 1,150 | 1,283 | 1,404 | 1,559 | 1,680
Township
Ingbirchworth 1,105 170 264 367 377 419 393 368 303 335 321 274
Township
Langsett 4,914 204 235 325 320 303 296 280 246 271 263 922
Township
Oxspring 7,202) 219 255 247 283 241 278 346 370 350 322 397
Township ;
Penistone 1,134 493 515 645 703 738 802 860 | 1,549 | 2,254 | 2,553 | 3,073
Township
Thurlstone 8,116] 1,096 | 1,282 | 1,524 | 1,599 | 1,872 | 2,018 | 2,257 | 2,639 | 2,857 | 2,735 | 2,992
Township”
Royston :— 12,997] 2,490 | 2,559 | 3,126 | 3,690 | 4,103 | 4,045 | 4,210 | 5,145 | 7,132 |10,371 |15,510
Carlton 1,977 2971 glZ 326 340 417 337 351 380 | 7,085 | 1,407 | 2,086
Township t
Chevet Township} 839 75 35 27 38 52 63 58 109 96 86 102
Cudworth 1,746 396 457 487 451 552 529 521 657 | 1,044 | 1,607 | 3,408
Township f
Monk Bretton 2,227 480 530 916 | 1,394 | 1,719 | 1,870 | 1,918 | 2,090 | 2,918 | 3,426 | 4,247
Township ¢
Notton Township} 2,603 323 327 339 317 310 269 286 218 267 269 262
Royston 1,022 360 367 549 597 641 587 545 676 | 1,128 | 2,613 | 4,397
Township
Woolley Chap. ft] 2,589] 565 543 482 553 418 450 531 | 1,015 600 969 | 1,008
Silkstone :— 13,869] 6,474 | 8,320 [12,587 |15,306 |17,952 |20,653 |24,607 |30,637 |37,794 [43,477 49,022
Barnsley Chap. | 2,385 | 3,606 | 5,014 | 8,284 |10,330 |12,310 |14,913 17,890 '23,021 |29,790 ee pe

20 Darfield Parish is situated in Staincross Wapentake and in Strafforth and Tickhill Wapentake—North Division

7 The population of Cumberworth Township, 1881-1901, includes that of Cumberworth Half ownship (Agbrigg Wapen-
take— Upper Division).

® Thurlstone Township.—The 1841 population included 225 persons temporarily employed on the Sheffield and
Manchester Railway.

542

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-

PaRISH. age r8or | 81x | 182r | 1831 | 1841 1851 | 186r | 1871 | 188r | 1891 | Igor
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Staincross
Wapentake (cont.)
Silkstone (cont.):—
Bretton, West, ]| 2,700] 497 543 518 588 564 492 504 425 350 323 355
Township
Dodworth 1,917) 403 | 743 | 1,227 | 1,179 | 1,474 | 1,494 | 2,117 | 2,747 | 2,989 | 3,106 | 3,022
Township
Hoyland Swaine] 2,026] 562 611 738 748 713 690 689 706 750 648 594
Township
Silkstone Town-] 7,499 542 555 807 | 1,010 | 1,076 | 7,037 | 1,154 | 1,297 | 1,433 | 1,640 | 1,698
ship
Stainbrough 1,720 227 202 194 304 482 479 470 465 529 442 490
Township .
Thurgoland 2,222] 643 | 652) 819 | 1,147 | 1,333 | 1,548 | 1,783 | 1,982 | 1,953 | 1,881 | 1,777
Township
Tankersley :— 8,082] 1,228 | 1,390 | 1,529 | 1,596 | 1,802 | 1,928 | 2,524 | 2,884 | 3,259 | 3,354 | 3,425
Tankersley 2,465 382 465 625 678 812 833 | 1,403 | 1,830 | 2,128 | 2,216 | 2,423
Township t

Wortley Chap. ¢] 5,677] 846 | 925 | 904] 978)| 990 | 1,095 | 1,121 | 1,054 | 1,137 | 1,138 | 1,002

Wragby per 11,657] 275 257 282 309 337 331 301 389 962 | 1,197 | 1,686
te) —

Ryhill Township 592 142 138 147 160 170 163 160 242 797 | 1,060 | 1,553

Wintersett 1,065 133 119 135 149 167 168 141 147 165 137 133

Township ft

Strafforth and
Tickhill Wapen-

take—North
Division
Adwick le 2,941] 375 | 438] 486] 536] 554] 480] 440] 448| 380) 430] 436
Street ¢ t :—
Adwick le Street] 7,638] 284 | 374| 346| 382| 434) 342) 280) 305| 257| 280) 294
Township ¢
Hampole noma 1,303 91 124 140 154 120 138 160 143 123 150 142
ship
Adwick upon 1,142] 142 159 168 145 180 209 226 215 253 246 373
Dearne
Barnbrough t { .[ 1,960] 446} 428 466 | 520 508 575 462} 450| 472 509 546
Bentley with ‘. 5,128] 980 | 1,102 | 1,171 | 1,144 | 1,056 | 1,105 | 1,099 | 1,197 | 1,484 | 1,880 | 2,403
Arksey
Blyth (part of) 3:—
Seals 2,784] 232 | 253 | 242] 280] 314] 372| 389] 413) 351] 341 | 293
ap.
Bolton eae t 2,325] 547 575 623 596 671 604 479 596 | 1,002 | 1,205 | 3,828
earne
Brodsworth{ . .] 3,121] 302 3581] 417| 447 467 | 448] 412] 412 346 336 338
Clayton with 1,590] 302] 294] 360] 321] 316} 331] 312] 295] 315 | 280) 314
Frickley f¢

Darfield (part 9,049] 1,618 | 1,745 | 1,936 | 1,997 | 2.493 | 2,839 | 5,078 | 7,206 |11,815 [15,461 |19,211
re)

fr:
Billingley Town-]| 863} 172 167 214 217 220 189 192 178 198 195 198

shi
Darfield Tanne 2,018] 447 443 512 520 648 591 746 | 1,673 | 2,616 | 3,416 | 4,194
shi
MéughenGre: 1,649] 257 271 287 292 348 333 309 250 360 620 | 1,220
Township
Houghton, Little} 669 128 119 112 132 108 99 93 96 190 288 347
Township
Wombwell 3,850] 614 745 817 836 | 1,169 | 1,627 | 3,738 | 5,009 | 8,457 |10,942 |13,252
Township
Doncaster (part
of) 4 ;-—
Langthwaite 649 34 24 21 28 25 16 38 20 27 26 27
with Tilts
Township ¢
22a See note g above. 22> See note 25 above.
28 Blyth Parish is situated in Strafforth and Tickhill Wapentake—North and South Divisions—and in Nottingham-
shire—Hatfield Division of Bassetlaw Wapentake. 23a See note 20 above.

24 Doncaster Parish is situated in Strafforth and Tickhill Wapentake—North Division, Doncaster Borough, and
Doncaster Soke.

543

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParIsH. pa 18or | 181r | 1821 | 1831 | 184r | 185r | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | Igor
WEST RIDING

(cont.)
Strafforth and

Tickhill Wapen-
take—WNorth
Division (cont.)

Ecclesfield t :— ] 49,617] 9,216 |10,188 |12,496 |13,415 |15,150 |16,870 |21,568 |26,423 |32,387 [38,252 |48,335
Bradfield Chap. |38,425| 4,102 | 4,354 | 5,298 | 5,504 | 6,318 | 6,865 9,089 |17,252 |11,170 |12,292 |14,416
Ecclesfield 11,192] 5,114 | 5,834 | 7,198 | 7,911 | 8,832 |10,005 |12,479 |15,177 |21,217 |25,960 |33,919

Township +

Hickleton¢t{ . .} 1,061 174 192 153 154 157 143 127 122 125 177 178

Hooton Pagnell :—] 2,537] 404 401 400 416 423 397 342 326 316 330 354
Bilham Town- 536 45 46 74 76 75 80 68 45 33 50 42

ship
Hooton Pagnell] 2,007] 359 355 | 326} 340 348 317 274 281 283 280 312
Township
Kirkby, South,
(part of) ¥ -—
Hamphall 239) — _— _ _ 23 26 II 21 24 25 30
Stubbs Town-
ship *

Marrt .. . .| 1,821 165 186 162 221 206 226 222 210 180 165 167

Melton, Hight .} 1,525 165 157 137 131 115 105 109 98 Is! 143 147

Rawmarsht . .{ 2,578] 1,011 | 1,110 | 1,259 | 1,538 | 2,068 | 2,533 | 4,374 | 6,869 |10,179 |12,360 |14,963

oes ae 6,216} 4,492 | 45735 | 5,049 | 5,321 | 6,689 | 8,969 |13,547 |17,530 |19,854 |23,958 [30,581

to} —
Greasbrough 2,456 | 1,166 | 1,253 | 1,252 | 1,290 | 1,623 | 2,017 | 2,937 | 3,697 | 3,817 | 4,392 4,284
Chap.
Kimberworth F 3,760| 3,326 | 3,482 | 3,797 | 4,031 | 5,066 | 6,952 |10,610 |13,839 |16,043 19,566 |26,297
Township t
Sheffield (part
of) 7 ;—

Brightside Bier-] 2,820] 4,030 | 4,899 | 6,615 | 8,968 |10,089 |12,042 29,818 148,556 56,719 |67,083 |73,088
low Township

Sprotbrough f :— | 3,970} 405] 479| 487] soo} 534] 528] 504] 476] 502] 527] 4or
Cadeby Town- | 7,235] 755| 177} 169| 178| 153| 166| 165| 137| 737} 769| 1746
ship
Sprotbrough 2,735] 250} 308| 318) 322| 381} 362| 339) 339| 371| 358| 345
Township
Thurnscoet . .]| 1,671 192 211 205 223 197 198 196 204 249 217 | 2,366
ee 11,063] 3,796 | 4,831 | 5,812 | 6,927 | 8,911 | 9,521 |13,820 |17,127 |25,942 |30,751 136,139
earne 7 :—

Brampton Bier- | 3,224] 860 | 7,020 | 1,263 | 1,462 | 1,704 | 7,747 | 1,938 | 1,978 | 3,704 | 4,597 | 5,053
low Township +
Hoyland, 2,087) 823 | 1,064 | 1,229 | 1,670 | 2,597 | 2,972 | 5,352 | 6,298 | 9,822 |11,006 \12,464

Nether, Chap.
Swinton Chap.¢] 7,700] 473 846 | 1,050 | 1,252 | 1,660 | 1,877 | 3,190 | 5,750 | 7,612 | 9,328 |11,841

Wath upon 1,724] 662] 815 | 1,007 | 1,149 | 1,453 | 1,495 | 1,690 | 2,023 | 3,012 | 3,894 | 4,847
Dearne Town-
ship t
cag | 2,328 978 | 1,086 ; 1,269 | 1,394 | 1,497 | 1,556 | 1,650 1,678 | 1,792 | 1,926 | 1,934
ap. ¢

Strafforth and
Tickhill Wa-
pentake—South
Division

Anston:— 4,684] 748 809 gII 986 | 1,102 | 1,186 | 1,290 | 1,451 | 1,512 | 1,641 | 1,642
Anston, North] 3,852] 625 | 675 | 776 | 840) 921 | 1,013 | 1,126 | 1,202 | 1,266 | 1,378 | 1,394
and South,

Township

Woodsetts 832 123 134 135 146 181 173 164 249 246 263 248
Township

Armthorpe f . -] 2,923) 273] 323] 359| 368] 449] 431] 424] 398} 393] 380] 314

Aston with 3,009} 586] O6or1 556 564 | 678 862 995 | 1,667 | 2,352 | 2,927 | 3,158
Aughton”4

24a See note 7 above.

35 In 1801-1831 the population of Hamphall Stubbs Township was wrongly included in that of Hamfole Township.

%8 Rotherham Parish is situated in Strafforth and Tickhill Wapentake—North and South Divisions. The popula-
tion in 1801-1831 of a small part of Rotherham Parish was wrongly included in that of Thrybergh Parish.

27 Sheffield Parish is situated in Strafforth and Tickhill Wapentake—North and South Divisions.

972 See note 29 below.

544

SOCIAL

AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

Acre-
PaRISH. ait r80r | 1811 1821 1831 | 184x | 1851 | 186x | 1871 | 1881 | 189% | Igor
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Strafforth and
Tickhili Wapen-
take—South
Division (cont.)
asa se 3,805] 471] 539}; 617) 561 629} 689] 644) 594/ 657) 613) 646
on t {:—
Barnby upon] 2,307 369 433 495 440 510 559) 537 484 551 516 577
DonTownshipf
Thorpe in Balne} 7,498 102 106 122 121 119 130 107 110 106 97 69
Township +
Blyth (part of )”> :—}
Bawtry Chap. .] 260] 798 g18 | 1,027 | 1,149 | 1,083) 1,170) 1,011 930) gil 947 934
Braithwell t t:— | 2,964] 569] 625 | 739] 745 800, 879 = 757| = 732) = 763} S781] = 749
Braithwell 1,949 331 396 438 455 447 493 422 372) 362 357 345
Township
Bramley 1,015] 238 229 301 290 353; 386 335 360 401 424 404
Township t¢
Cantleyt . - -| 5,598] 500| 548 | 577] 634 651; 722} 663) 630) += 559, 547] 514
Conisbiought . -] 4,559] 843 | 1,047 | 1,142 | 1,347 | 1,445) 1,557 1,655| 2,119) 2,706) 4,514] 8,562
Dinnington. . .| 1,652] 162 169 189 233 279 285 272 257 259 265 258
Edlington . . .] 1,757] 127 116 14! 129 127 151 149 123 128 142 158
Firbeck . . . | 1,297] 161 169 226 178 1gI 204 195 223 249 187 231
Fishlake + :— 8,190] 1,188 | 1,194 | 1,274 | 1,334] 1,257] 1,295] 1,208) 1,225) 1,022 965) 1,146
Fishlake 3,909} 691 704 723 717 629 642 585) 615 596 523 515
Township t{
Sykehouse 4,281 497 490 551 617 628 653 623 610 426 442) 631
Chap.tt
Handsworth . .] 3,641] 1,424 | 1,841 | 2,173 | 2,338 | 2,862] 3,264) 3,951 5,783| 7,645| 10,295] 14,161
Harthill with 3,565| 660) 641 650 | 632 709 739| 673 883] 1,109] 1,396] 1,225
Woodall ¢ t
Hatfield + :— 17,777] 15773 | 2,066 | 2,642 | 3,000 ) 2,939} 2,721) 2,564] 2,543] 2,570| 2,339) 2,377
Hatfield 14,294] 1,307 | 1,487 | 1,948 | 2,148 | 2,075} 7,840) 1,873| 1,795) 1,788) 1,613) 1,577
Township tf
Stainforth with] 3,483 472 579 694 852 924 887 751 748) 782| 726 806
Bramwith
Township f
Hooton Roberts {.] 1,057] 158 143 190 178 175 218 241 216 235 225 209
Kirk Sandallt. .] 1,638] 156 173 192 200 187 239 233 247 299 246 216
Laughton-en-le 3,879] 465 614 | 652 780 742 734 736| 683 663} 660) 631
Morthen *
Maltby {:— 4,649] 600 698 774 844 839 924 858 805 890 766 792
Hooton Levitt 549 73 96 95 92 76 109 84 87 95 57 76
Township
MaltbyTownship}] 4,700] 527 602 679 752 763} 815 774 718) 795) 709 716
Mexborough tf . .] 2,351] 545 523 | 1,006 | 1,270 | 1,425] 1,652) 2,665) 5,011| 7,950] 9,442| 13,100
Denaby 1,058] 728| 120| 147| 130 167, 146| 203) " 695) 1,631| 7,708| 2,670
Township
Mexborough 1,293 417 403 865 | 1,140 1,258| 1,506) 2,462} 4,316) 6,319) 7,734| 10,430
Township +
Ravenfield{ . .| 1,236] 172 183 187 229 241 180 183 168 172) 177 217
Rotherham 6,999} 3,926 | 3,936 | 4,574 | 5,096 | 6,850) 7,853) 10,551) 13,770] 19,353] 23,124) 30,960
(part of )** t:—
Brinsworth 7,391 183 208 225 227 241 266 777 805| 1,332) 1,656) 2,786
Township ¢
Catcliffe 704 135 170 202 196 252 273 279 336 349 532| 1,232
Township
Dalton 1,414 225 264 225 187 288 319 336 335 331 322 314
Township ¢
Orgreave 547 45 42 47 35 52 57 72 93 81 101 132
Township
Rotherham 1,271] 3,070 | 2,950 | 3,548 | 4,083 | 5,505, 6,325) 8,390| 11,248| 16,257) 19,419| 24,558
Townshi
Tinsley Chap.te 1,672] 268| 302) 327| 368 512| 613] 697| 953| 1,003| 1,094) 1,938
Sheffield (part 16,833 [41,725 |48,332 |58,660 |82,724 |101,002/123,268/155,354 191,390|227,789|25 7,160,307,705
) i-
Atreratitec cum] 7,298] 2,287 | 2,673 | 3,172 | 3,747 | 4,156] 4,873| 7,464| 16,574) 26,965) 35,883) 51,807
Darnall Chap.

27> See note 23 above.

8 The population of Throapham To

28a See note 26 above.

28b See note 27 above.

545

wnship in 1811 was included in that shown for Laughton-en-le-Morthen Parish.

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

. (
PaRIsH. sei r8or | 181r | 182r | 1831 1841 | 1851 |; 1861 | 1871 1881 1891 Igo!

WEST RIDING
(cont.)

Straforth and
Tickhill Wapen-
take—South

Division (cont.)

Sheffield (part of)
(cont.) :— ;
Ecclesall Bier-| 4,343] 5,362 | 6,569 | 9,713 |14,279 |19,984 |24,552 |38,771 (49,674 58,800 68,988 83,543
low Township t¢
Hallam, Nether, } 7,832] 7,974 | 2,384 | 3,200 | 4,658 | 7,275 | 8,897 |19,758 |31,810 |47,705 |58,164 78,111

Township t¢
Hallam, Upper,| 6,330] 794 | 866 | 1,018 | 1,035 | 1,401 | 1,499 | 1,643 | 1,974 | 2,513 | 2,709 | 3,846
Township ¢
Sheffield 3,030 |31,314 |35,840 42,157 59,011 68,186 83,447 87,718 91,358 |91,806 |91,416 |90,398
Township
Stainton cum 2,857] 151 178 | 218] 254 226 | 284 | 267] 258 224 227 209
Hellaby t¢ tf
Stotfold Extra Par.] 256 8 9 9 9 9 9 7 6 7 4 il
Thornett . . [12,408] 2,655 | 2,713 | 3463 | 3,779 | 3507 | 3.484 | 3381 | 3.371 | 3,484 | 3,441 | 3,706

Thorpe Salvin t .] 2,296] 180! 202] 199] 233] 340] 313] 337] 410] 356) 366) 399
Throapham St.| 2,979] 216; 169] 268] 306) 289] 266| 297] 292] 291 | 243 | 266

John :-—
Gildingwells 588 —_ 62 83 81 91 71 83 86 78 65 66
Township}
Letwell Chap. .] 7,337 _ 107 735 155 129 115 139 139 117 86 110
Throapham 1,060 _= _ 50 70 69 80 75 67 96 92 90
Township *¢
Thrybergh ™4 ¢ .f' 1,318] 247 272 315 332 214 239 235 216 207 245 489
Tickhill t f :— 6,780] 1,150 | 1,572 | 1,884 | 2,084 | 2,040 | 2,159 1,980 | 1,920 | 1,902 | 1,673 1,643
Stancill with} 7,200 46 64 54 66 59 72 65 76 72 85 78
Wellingley and
Wilsick Town-
ship t
Tickhill 5,580) 1,104 | 1,508 | 1,830 | 2,078 | 1,981 | 2,087 | 1,975 | 1,844 | 1,830 | 1,588 | 7,565
Township
Todwickt{ . . .| 1,806] 177 213 210 22 214 200 187 193 173 200 311
Treeton ¢ :— 3,689] 628 575 703 680 746 702 649 694 | 1,170 | 2,101 | 2,777
Brampton-en-le- | 7,723 120 110 136 142 139 134 116 125 137 106 102
Morthen
Township
Treeton 1,632) 312 338 364 345 419 386 368 383 897 | 1,820 | 2,450

Township tt
Ulley Township" 934 196 127 203 193 188 182 165 186 136 175 225

Wadwortht f . «| 3,133] 446 467 614 690 681 724 656 686 571 510 530
Wales™¢t. . .1 1,319] 229] 218] 277] 226| 351 | 268) 305 | 1,359 | 1,840 | 1,944 | 1,846
Warmsworth®. .} 1,311] 254 261 335 362 358 389 | 385 407 442 419 | 536
Whiston® . . .| 3,948] 672 762 859 | 927 | 1,103 | 1,050 | 1,185 | 1,317 | 1,388 | 1,687 | 2,400
Wickersley $ . .] 1,274] 270 311 432 527 652 700 709 717 798 732 703
Ripon Liberty
Markingfield Hall, | 597] — _— —_ _ 27 15 15 13 16 13 15
Extra Par. *
Nidd . . 1,204] 114 120 86 TIO 114 114 141 136 149 167 193

Ripon (part of) +: 136,277] 8,307 | 9,260 j11,152 [11,836 12,309 /12,368 |12,375 |13,167 |14,061 13,693 [14,171
Aismunderby 1,085) 496 | 521| 557 | 655 | 614| 607| 620| 732| 815 | 852 | 1,116
with Bondgate
Township t¢
Bishop Monkton] 2,786 363 480 479 576 460 435 444 550 483 425 463
Chap.
Bishopside, High| 6,070] 1,487 | 1,679 | 2,072 | 1,849 | 1,937 | 1,862 | 2,052 | 2,167 | 2,566 | 2,212 | 2,387
and Low, Chap.
Bishop Thornton] 3,736 359 517 647 614 610 691 547 505 479 474 482
Chap.

®c See note 28 above. 23d See note 26 above.

29 Ulley Township— Part of the population in 1811 was included in that shown for Aston with Aughton Parish.

80 TVales Parish.—The population in 1841 included forty-one persons in barges.

81 |V'armsworth Parish includes the formerly Extra Parochial Place of Carr House and Elmfeld.

89 [}"histon Parish —A number of labourers on the railway were temporarily present in 1841.

88 The population of the Extra Parochial Place of Markingfield Hall was included in that of Aismunderby with Bond
gate Township, 1801-1831. 833 See note 97 above.

546

SOCIAL

TABLE OF POPULATION,

AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

1801—Igo1 (continued)

ParisH ee 1801 I811r 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 IQol
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Ripon Liberty
(cont.)
Ripon (part of)
(cont.) :-—
Bishopton 386 106 91 136 118 108 147 81 148 107 89 161
Township
Clotherholme 339 11 18 16 14 10 17 12 12 12 11 13
Township
Eavestone 1,144 57 68 73 82 88 79 64 50 36 39 41
Township
Givendale 849 19 25 37 35 29 35 40 41 39 36 48
Township
Grantley 773 195 233 233 243 246 242 235 187 159 160 168
Township *>
Hewick, Bridge, ] 977 69 77 95 85 73 89 81 71 94 73
Township 183
Hewick, Copt, 667 105 131 160 168 187 194 202 233 187 183
Township
Ingerthorpe 512 46 39 44 48 46 44 39 47 49 55 49
Township
Markington with] 3,704 389 435 457 487 510 528 496 453 464 463 404
Wallerthwaite
Township
Newby with 796, — 45 52 39 41 50 60 62 85 67 73
Mulwith Town-
ship
Nunwick with 938 27 35 28 38 35 40 41 31 38 22 22
Howgrave
Township
Ripon Township] 7,567] 3,277 | 3,633 | 4,563 | 5,080 | 5,461 | 5,553 | 5,679 | 6,143 | 6,647 | 6,748 | 6,767
Sawley Chap. 3,285 438 489 490 499 527 450 446 341 372 362 303
SharowTownship} 723 106 105 103 103 185 244 256 308 380 466 463
Skelton Chap. 927 240 236 314 383 403 330 282 287 299 281 271
Stainley, North, } 4,245 315 252 385 407 441 429 445 461 412 374 376
with Slening-
ford Township
Sutton Grange 1,022 103 87 86 83 101 89 69 60 52 37 19
Township
Westwick 422 20 22 27 30 18 15 26 28 13 19 19
Township
Whitcliffe with 1,262 136 136 157 198 186 221 224 271 262 226 276
Littlethorpe
Township ¢
Warsill Extra Par. | 1,030] — —_ 86 93 81 65 82 97 59 56 60
Doncaster
Borough
Doncaster
(part of) 8 :—
Doncaster 1,695] 5,697 | 6,935 | 8,544 [10,801 [10,455 |12,052 16,406 |18,768 |21,139 |25,933 |28,932
Township
Doncaster Soke
Doncaster 4,097| 390] 495} 552] 743] 765] 915 | 1,325 | 2,306 | 4,544 | 6,174 |10,472
(part of) %° + :—
Balby with 1,615) 283| 355 | 392| 420| 486 | 638 | 1,058 | 2,038 | 3,422 | 4,270 | 6,781
Hexthorpe
Township
Sandall, Long, | 2,482] 707| 740| 160| 323 | 279| 277| 267 | 268 | 1,122 | 1,904 | 3,691
with Wheatley
Township f
Finningley 3,084] 269 132 117 | 411 476 | 372| 356) 340 363 3al 298
(part of) §4 :—
Auckley Town- | 7,227 = = — 235 293 226 203 169 147 133 149
ship (part of)
83b See note 97 above. 88¢ See note 24 above.
84 Finningley Pavish.—The remainder is in Nottinghamshire—Hatfield Division of the Bassetlaw Wapentake. The

entire population of Auckley Township is shown in Nottinghamshire in 1811 and 1821.

547

A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE

TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued)

ParRIsH ss 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 Igo1
WEST RIDING
(cont.)
Doncaster Soke
(cont.)
Finningley (part of)
(cont.) :—
Blaxton 1,857) — 132 117 176 183 146] 153 171 216 168 149
Township
Loversall { . . .{ 2,174] 133 129 131 154 159 193} 175 183 177 184 159
Rossington ~ . .]| 3,046] 247 316 383 325 344] 402} 400 329 354 365 342
Leeds Borough
Leeds :— 20,392 {53,162 [62,534 |83,796 |123,393 151,874|1 72,023 206,88 1/25 8,81 7/308,628 367,059 428,572
Armley Chap. .] 963] 2,695 | 2,947 | 4,273 | 5,159| 5,676| 6,190| 6,734| 9,224| 12,737| 18,992) 27,521
Beeston Chap. t] 7,570] 1,427 | 7,538 | 1,670 | 2,128 2,175] 1,973] 2,547| 2,762| 2,928| 2,962) 3,323
Bramley Chap. .] 2,570] 2,562 | 3,484 | 4,927 | 7,039] 8,875|- 8,949| 8,690] 9,882] 11,055| 14,787| 17,299
Chapel Allerton | 2,872] 7,054 | 1,362 | 1,678 | 1,934) 2,580] 2,842) 3,083| 3,847| 4,324) 4,377) 5,841
Chap.
Farley Chap. t | 2,088] 943 | 7,764 | 1,332 | 1,591| 1,530| 1,722] 3,064| 2,964) 3,608) 3,590) 4,351
Headingley with | 3,785] 1,373 | 1,670 | 2,154 | 3,849) 4,768] 6,105| 9,674) 13,942] 19,138] 29,911| 41,561
Burley Chap.
Holbeck Chap.¢] 677] 4,196 | 5,124 | 7,151 | 11,210) 13,346| 14,152| 15,824| 17,165| 19,150] 20,630] 28,179
Hunslet Chap. t] 7,752] 5,799 | 6,393 | 8,177 | 12,074) 15,852, 19,466] 25,763] 37,289) 46,942, 58,164) 69,134
Leeds Township | 2,737 |30,669 |35,951 |48,603 | 71,602) 88,741)101,343|117,566|139,362|160,109,177,523\177,920
Potter Newton 1,709 509 571 664 863) 1,241) 1,385| 1,878) 3,457| 5,107) 9,269| 25,987
Township

Wortley Chap. .] 7,055] 7,995 | 2,336 | 3,779 a! 7,090| 7,896| 12,058] 18,923] 23,530) 26,854) 27,456

1801 1811 1821 1831 | 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901

)
|

1,497,787|1,821,340|2,165,056|/2,4 29,632 2,733,088

|
Total of the | — [564,593 650,168 800,444] 957,458 1,154,068 1.315,885
West Riding |

GENERAL NoTE

Some persons in vessels were included in the 1841 population of certain places in Yorkshire,
but not so as noticeably to affect the figures given in the Table.

548

“fai

.
AN
Y Bil aif
RS a A lg
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Full text of "The Victoria history of the county of York;"

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